


A System of Sides

by shnuffeluv



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Arguing, Car Accidents, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Gen, Making Up, Multiplicity/Plurality, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 50,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/shnuffeluv
Summary: What if the Sanders' Sides were in fact, real? What if Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil were all, in fact, part of a system where Thomas was the host? And what if they were always at each others' throats, with virtually no hope of getting along? At least, until Patton started scheming...





	1. Chapter 1

Patton looked at the mess in the kitchen and sighed heavily. There was broken glassware, food flung everywhere, and in the sink, a little bit of hair. He wished this was a rare occurrence upon walking into one of the shared rooms of the Mind Palace, but sadly it was not. And he knew that no one was going to clean more of this up than necessary to use the counter space they needed if he wasn’t cleaning it, so he got to work.

Grabbing the dust pan and brush from under the sink, he started sweeping up the glass on surfaces that could be stepped on first. His mind unwillingly drifted to the shouting he had heard earlier today.

_“What do you mean, you’re not going to let Thomas read a book until he memorizes his lines! I’ve been looking forward to that book on astronomy for_ weeks _!”_

_“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that_ your _priorities for Thomas are more important than_ mine _!”_

The argument had been between Logan and Roman, and Patton had winced as he heard those words being screamed, and some more hurtful, more hate-fueled things along with them. He had been hiding in his room, although, considering the situation, he kinda doubted that anyone in his position would have done anything different. Virgil hadn’t come out of his room either, at least.

_Virgil rarely if ever leaves his room, I doubt he’s actually a good baseline for behavior,_  Patton thought sullenly.

No, no, he had to think positive about this whole thing. If he got too down and then started influencing Thomas, Thomas might get upset too and then–no, no, he had to stay happy. For Thomas’ sake if for no one else’s. Of course, it was hard, being in the middle of a highly dysfunctional system and staying positive.

It wasn’t easy being plural, period, but having everyone trying to turn each other into dormant personalities that were no longer a “problem” made Patton want to go dormant himself.

Thomas needed him, though. Thomas relied on Patton for lots of his feelings, and his sense of right and wrong. Patton was a moral compass; he was needed. So he couldn’t go dormant just yet.

With a sigh, he swept up the last of the glass and threw it away. He ran the tap a little bit in the sink and splashed the water around until the hair went down the drain. He could use the garbage disposal later to clean it out if it started clogging anything, though the hair wasn’t even in chunks, so Patton severely doubted that would become a problem.

Next, came the food, and Patton shook his head as he grabbed a dish towel and wet it. It was such a waste, flinging food around just to make a point. Not to mention very childish. And sure, they could summon food into the Mind Palace’s pantry whenever they wanted to, but the fact remained that food should not be flung in the first place.

Patton wasn’t entirely sure what he was cleaning up on the counter. It could have been icing, or it could have been a very, very tie-dyed stew. Since they could get food in any color they wanted, it was hardly a surprise to find neon bananas or bright orange cucumbers lying around. Roman did love to turn all his food funny colors before consuming it.

There were footsteps behind Patton before he heard a world-weary sigh that could only belong to the most dramatic and creative personality of them all, Roman. “I assume that you heard my…discussion with Logan earlier?” he asked.

Patton silently nodded and continued to clean. He didn’t even give Roman the satisfaction of seeing his face. Patton didn’t think he was up to playing the happy father-figure the others expected him to be.

“Ah…” Roman struggled for words, an occurrence that came few and far-between for the Prince-like personality. “I am truly sorry, Patton. I forgot to control my voice so that no one outside that discussion heard it, when I quite obviously should have.”

Patton shrugged and forced a smile, turning around. “It’s okay, Roman, we all get upset sometimes. I just wish there was less of a mess to clean up sometimes, because you kids certainly know how to make a ruckus!”

Roman smiled at the small attempt of humor and nodded. “I can assist you, if you wish?”

“Sure,” Patton agreed. It couldn’t be too harmful to his mood, which was already considerably down. He had an idea about how to lift it, though. “Any good adventures lately?”

Roman smiled as he grabbed a dishcloth and started wiping surfaces clean. “Oh, you know. Thomas was daydreaming before he fell asleep last night and I gave him the good old dragon witch adventure, which is a staple in my repertoire.”

Patton certainly knew about that. He got along well enough with all of the personalities in this system, but Roman liked him the best. As such, he would often regale Patton with tales about how awesome or cool he was and what he was doing on his adventures recently. It entertained Patton to hear them, and he could just imagine Thomas daydreaming the very scenes that Roman talked about. Thomas often knew about Roman’s adventures, even if he didn’t exactly know…Roman.

That was another issue in the system, although it was one Patton wasn’t sure he wanted to fix. Thomas was, as far as he knew, completely oblivious to the fact that he was plural. When two of the personalities would butt heads, Patton would check on Thomas’ thought process to make sure he was all right and his feelings would generally be that his inner dialogue was weighing the pros and cons of a situation. Patton had never heard him consider the possibility the “voice” was actually two voices and the “dialogue” was an at-the-throat, no-holds-barred fight.

Introducing Thomas to the mess that the system was would be way too hectic, though, and everyone argued enough as it was. Everybody saw Thomas as the one they had to protect, the one they had to nurture, like a parent might their child. It wasn’t like anything particularly bad had happened in their childhood, quite the opposite! But with Thomas’ mental state and his creativity something happened to cause all of them to form.

As far as anyone knew, Virgil was the first one to split off. He held all of Thomas’ deepest fears and even everyday ones about his friends or his family. Sometimes Virgil got a little too heightened in his anxiety and would send himself into a panic attack, which generally caused Thomas to freeze up, not exactly paralyzed by fear and not necessarily having a panic attack himself but too overwhelmed by the emotions to do much of anything.

Patton was the next to form. He held Thomas’ thoughts on right and wrong as well as his emotions, after a joke gone awry on the playground made Thomas so afraid and so upset he didn’t know what to do. Patton had quickly taken Thomas’ sadness and shoved it down to be dealt with later, and after he apologized to the person he hurt, Thomas was back to laughing and running around like any kid his age would want to.

Logan came next. Thomas’ thirst to learn had always been strong, but it was overwhelming in his formative years in elementary school. Patton and Virgil could feel the imbalance in the system, and, not knowing what to do about it, helped Thomas take the overwhelming desire to learn and put it in its own controlled form, which became Logan, the always curious intellectual and logical personality.

And last but certainly not least to form was Roman. Thomas’ curiosity about chapter books was overwhelming one day, and upon starting to read he was whisked away to a world he had never been to, a world he wanted to explore. Finding that he couldn’t go beyond the book’s pages, he created his own character in his mind, a gallant prince, who went off to have adventures of his own. As Thomas’ stories got more and more complex, his character grew and grew until Roman had a mind of his own and took over Thomas’ creativity, and his hopes and dreams.

All of them had their own unique ways of protecting Thomas and helping him reach his goals, and all of them had their own ways of showing it. Unfortunately, those ways often clashed leaving them with arguments like the one that had happened this morning.

Patton looked around and sighed. The floor and counters were cleaned, there was still food in the pantry, and it almost looked like nothing had happened, despite the tension still palpable in the air. “I think I might go back to my room now,” Patton told Roman. “I hope you don’t mind, I just need some time to think about what fun thing Thomas could do next, you know?”

Roman took a deep bow and gestured to the exit of the kitchen. “Of course, Patton, take all the time you need. I will be here to help you on the adventure should the need arise. Well, not here. I must go to my room as well to concoct an even eviler thing the dragon witch can do so that I may slay her!”

Patton nodded and Roman left the room. Despite willing his feet to move, Patton stayed in place a while longer. For the moral personality, he certainly lied a lot around the others. Almost every time he announced he was going to his room, he was actually going to see one of the others without starting any fights. He needed to check and make sure that Logan wasn’t mad, and that Virgil was all right after the argument. Telling Roman about that, though, might start  _another_  argument, possibly more vicious than the last. He would claim Logan didn’t have emotions and Virgil was nothing more than a nuisance. Both lies which he heartily and readily believed. Patton just hoped that he could one day change Roman’s mind about that. For now, he had to check on the others.

* * *

When Patton finally found it in him to approach Logan’s room, he immediately knew by the way that the door was shut and the  _Do Not Disturb_  sign was on the handle that Logan was metaphorically licking his wounds after the earlier fiasco. He also knew that he might be the only exception to the Do Not Disturb sign on a good day, and sent out a silent plea to whoever might hear such a thing that today would be one of the good days.

He took the last step up to Logan’s room and gave it a solid two raps on the door, with much more confidence than he felt. But footsteps approached the door from the other side, and the door cracked open for Patton, Logan standing behind the other side of the door, and looking mildly annoyed. “What do you want, Patton?” he sighed.

“Only to make sure you’re doing okay,” Patton said, not off put by Logan’s tone in the slightest. “Isn’t it better for Thomas when you’re working at maximum capacity, or whatever you’re calling it now?”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Why are you telling me something I already know?”

“Because I care about Thomas too, and since he’s helped when you’re at one-hundred percent, I want to make sure that’s where you are.” Patton hated the back-and-forth it took to get Logan to talk to him; the personality seemed to deny he had any and all feelings, but he was the first to get offended if someone said something he didn’t think was true, and the first to get in a heated argument about what the “right” thing was. “Just let me talk to you for a bit? It doesn’t even have to be in your room, Roman’s retreated to his for a bit so we should have the Common Room to ourselves if you want.”

“No, no, if you’re going to insist on rambling to me about feelings I would prefer no witnesses,” Logan said, opening his door further to allow Patton entry. “Come in, sit on the bed if you must, I’m afraid your usual chair has been overrun with my research.”

“Well that desk chair of yours is portable, it means you can move your books around faster, so that’s all right,” Patton said, looking around as he walked in. The good news was that Logan’s room wasn’t overrun entirely by papers and science experiments and books like it was when he got overwhelmed by feelings and blocked them out with facts. The bad news was the only place either he or Logan could sit was on the bed, so overrun entirely wasn’t too far out of the picture. Patton needed to do some damage control, and fast. “What did Roman do this time?” he didn’t like how that placed the blame on Roman, but it was the only way to get Logan to talk.

Logan’s slightly amiable mood soured considerably and Patton almost regretted bringing it up. Almost. “He exclaimed that Thomas wasn’t going to read the book I had set aside for us to read for weeks unless he memorized his lines for the play he’s in first! Can you imagine that?! I’ve been waiting for this for weeks, and he swoops in one day and scatters my plans to the wind! It’s the one day that’s absolutely perfect for reading outside, why can’t he see that?! And he has more than today to learn those lines, he has a month, minimum in order to do it! And I just–ugh! I can not believe he would do that!”

The problem was, Patton could see that perfectly. He could see Roman walking in and announcing that everyone had to drop their plans in favor of his, It wasn’t unusual, worse, it seemed to be becoming a regular occurrence. Everyone was convinced that what they wanted for Thomas was the best and  _only_  option that should be pursued. But when you had four different people whose ideas didn’t always match up, things were bound to clash more than a little. Patton said nothing and let Logan let off more steam if he needed to.

“I understand that Thomas isn’t in school any more, but it’s my job to help him learn, and there’s no rule saying you’re not allowed to learn once you’re out of school, it just means you can learn in different, more free-form ways! In some respects, that’s better than school!”

Patton nodded. “I believe you, Logan. But it is true that Roman needs to help Thomas memorize lines for the play, and the sooner that gets done the sooner everyone can get back to what they want to do. Would it be possible to read maybe a chapter or two of your book before Thomas works on his lines?”

Logan glared at Patton. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side here!”

Patton held his hands up. “I support how you feel, but I also know what Roman feels is important too. We can’t just throw his feelings away in the process of following ours.”

“Of course we can, that’s what we’re doing now!” Logan protested.

“That’s what you’re _trying_  to do,” Patton corrected. “I’m not going to support anyone hurting anyone else in this head, you know that.”

Logan scowled. “Then get out of my room and let me help Thomas the way he needs, since  _you_  can’t seem to see that I have what’s best in mind for him!”

Ouch, that hurt. But Patton stood and left Logan’s room quickly, letting the door slam behind him. Logan was still in a mood, but Patton could subtly remove some of his anger to take it on himself later if he really needed to. One down, one to go.

Patton walked down the hall to Virgil’s room, and the anxious personality was already leaning in the door frame, watching Patton. “I had a feeling that you’d be coming here soon,” he shrugged. “I wouldn’t recommend coming in unless you want to have a panic attack.”

Patton nodded and said, “I don’t want that, so I’ll stand out here for now. Are you okay?”

Virgil seemed to bristle slightly at the question. “What do you mean? I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you say that every time someone ends up yelling at you or someone else. Doesn’t mean it’s actually true,” Patton said.

Virgil shrugged. “It is what it is, you know? Being an embodiment of fear means I’m rarely fine. In small doses I help Thomas, in large ones I’m apparently a menace.”

“I know that’s not true, you’re a great person!” Patton exclaimed. There was another lie: he did know that when Virgil influenced Thomas too much he would often end up getting hurt. But if it meant that Virgil might hate himself a little less by the end of this, Patton would lie through his teeth until the cows came home.

Virgil saw through the lie easily and squinted at Patton. “I hope you know that you’re a horrible liar,” he said with a slight grin.

Patton rubbed the back of his neck. “The others believe me.”

“The others weren’t around when you learned about lying. I know all of your tells,” Virgil said, amused. “I’m the oldest besides Thomas, remember? And we’re not even sure where Thomas is in this place, so I don’t know exactly what to tell you about hierarchy except that I’m the oldest member walking around head space.”

Patton nodded dejectedly. He was really hoping to cheer Virgil up, he had enough negative emotions to keep away from Thomas already.

“Hey, though. I appreciate the thought,” Virgil said. “It’s…sweet of you to worry. Misguided, for sure, but sweet.”

Patton offered a grin of his own. “If there’s anything you need, please let me know, okay?” Patton asked. “I want to make sure that you can work at your best to help Thomas like Logan and Roman and I all do. If we’re not at one-hundred percent than neither is Thomas!”

“True, but there are some times he doesn’t need to be one hundred percent,” Patton pointed out. “Alone in his room, for instance, when he’s watching TV. Nothing he can do wrong there.”

Patton offered a half-grin at Virgil. The personality was signalling to Patton what they might need to have Thomas do to keep Virgil from acting up over the course of the day. And while they couldn’t just isolate themselves the whole day, in the evening if Virgil’s anxiety got the best of everyone, now Patton knew exactly what to do to help the others. “I’ll see you around, then?” Patton asked.

“I’m sure you will,” Virgil said with a smile. “It’s not exactly like we can leave this hole.”

Patton laughed and retreated to his room, his mind whirring. What he had said earlier about being one hundred percent was impossible to achieve so far from what he had seen. Everyone always had too much infighting to really do much of anything except mark their territory and hope that no one would encroach on it that day. But what would happen if Patton managed to get the others to share their territory? If he got cooperation from everyone to not fight anymore, that would take less of a toll on him, and therefore he could be happier more often to help Thomas! That could work, couldn’t it?!

He’d need to figure out how to do it, though. He couldn’t just sit everyone down in the common room and expect them to work things out. This needed to be done slowly. With precision, one person at a time. He’d consult Roman on this in a bit, since he was the one most likely to listen to Patton when he had a plan. For now, though, Patton walked back to his room, and plotted his next course of action. Couldn’t go to Roman  _without_  a plan, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Roman was sitting in his room, a pencil twirling in his hand as he wrote down ideas for possible stories to create. He only had so much time with Thomas, thanks to the others, and he intended to make the most of it. It didn’t matter that he barely got more than either Patton or Logan did, or even Virgil, who was almost always nagging at Thomas in one way or another. Anything but Thomas’ full, undivided attention was not enough for these projects, and if he wanted Thomas to make it big, these projects were going to do it.

There was a knock at his door and he called out, “Come in!”

Logan wouldn’t come to Roman so soon after a fight, and Virgil didn’t come to visit Roman, period, so the only possible option left was Patton. “Hey, Roman, I was wondering if we could talk,” the moral personality said as he entered.

Roman looked over and saw such a solemn expression on Patton’s face that he had to put down what he was doing and turn to face him fully. “Patton? What’s wrong?”

Patton shrugged and walked over. “I’ve been thinking since your fight with Logan yesterday. About how Thomas has been just barely functioning for a while and what it means for all of us. Whenever any of us get in a fight it drains not only us, but Thomas as well. We’re hurting him whenever we try and get our individual ways.”

Roman watched as Patton started to pace, hands behind his back and the sweater he wore around his neck flying wildly from the speed he had quickly picked up. “It’s not healthy, at all. And we all want to help Thomas, though we don’t always see eye-to-eye on it, and I thought that in order to help Thomas this could work, but I’d need your seal of approval on it, because it involves you–”

“Patton, slow down,” Roman instructed. “What idea did you have, and how does it involve me?”

Turning sharply on his heel, Patton faced Roman fully. “I want to create a truce between everyone. An agreement to not fight over who gets what time with Thomas. A written agreement about who fronts and how much time they get. But you’d need to agree to it, in addition to Logan and Virgil.”

Roman wrinkled his nose. Logan and Virgil? Why should he agree with those two clowns? All they did was distract Thomas from achieving his true dreams, whether it was through fear of the actions he needed to take, or through some other thing Thomas then dubbed more important than practicing for the perfect role.

Patton must have noticed his reaction, because he held his hands out pleadingly. “Please, Roman. You don’t have to get along with them, all I’m asking is you give it a shot once everything smooths over around here. It doesn’t even have to be right away, I just want you to consider it.”

Roman sighed and leaned back into his seat. It was true that Thomas was often drained from their inner arguments, though Roman couldn’t understand why, considering Thomas was never around, considering Roman didn’t even know where Thomas had set up in the Mind Palace, and considering whatever Thomas was doing allowed him to always be fronting and only have the others influence him or cofront. The fact of the matter was, when one of them hurt another, it often hurt Thomas in the process as well, which was the last thing Roman wanted to happen. Patton had a point with his idea of a truce, even if it meant dividing up time between everyone. While Roman would prefer full control, he knew the others would never allow it. Not even happy pappy Patton, who was all too eager to help Thomas reach whatever dreams he and Roman had come up with. No, the best way to ensure as much control as he could get was to jump into this truce idea. But…“I wouldn’t have to deal with Virgil right away, would I?”

“I was thinking we could talk to Logan first,” Patton assured. “I know that Virgil is…something else. I don’t want this idea shut down before it even starts, you know?”

Well, that was a relief, at least. Patton probably had anticipated that question and had no doubt decided Logan would be the best bet for working things out first. But, even before that…wouldn’t Patton want a change to influence Thomas as well? “What about you, Patton? When do you get a chance to help Thomas?”

“Oh, I do that all the time!” Patton said. “I help him when he’s sad, I encourage him when he’s happy, help him find ways to channel his anger into being productive…I’m his heart a lot of the time, for all I help with his emotions!”

Roman frowned. “But you don’t…you don’t try and get into front the best way you can by influencing Thomas and watching what happens on the outside, do you?”

Patton shook his head. “Not usually, no. But, I mean, it’s not like I have to. Me and Virgil both actually have better ways to sense how Thomas is feeling without having to ‘tune in’ to what he’s doing.”

“Huh,” Roman said, taking that information and storing it for later. “That’s good to know, I suppose. Does that mean you help Thomas when he’s practicing lines for a part?”

“Yeah! Just like you get excited when he gets them right, I get excited too and I encourage him to try it again, with more emotion or at a faster pace or whatever he needs in order to make it sound more natural!” Patton said.

“Do you help him with…Logan’s pursuits as well?” Roman asked, suddenly suspicious.

Patton shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah, I guess,” Patton said. “I encourage Thomas whenever he gets excited. If it’s about his dreams and ambitions and creativity, you’re usually the one I’m helping in addition to Thomas, but if it’s about learning and problem solving and planning, then I guess I’m helping Logan out too.”

Hm. An equal opportunity player. That might mean he would give more time to Logan to cofront with Thomas than Roman would like. He’d have to keep that in mind.

“Well I suppose it certainly couldn’t hurt Thomas to try and work things out with Logan, so I’ll consider it. I want a little time first to go through what I might want as conditions for this truce, but I’ll let you know when I’m ready. Does Logan know about your idea yet?”

“Not yet,” Patton admitted. “I wanted to run it by you first to make sure that you’d agree to it. If I got Logan to but not you, that would be kinda awkward, and I figured you and I are already on good terms, so nothing much to lose here, you know?”

Patton was nervous. Very nervous, if Roman was reading him correctly. Patton really wanted this idea to work out. Roman didn’t think much of anything could come out of it, but he wasn’t about to tell Patton that. The poor guy looked just about ready to burst from nervous energy already. “All right, Patton, you have my approval, you should probably work on Logan’s as well. Don’t want me all ready to go and then have me change my mind from a bad argument before Logan even knows about this.”

Patton’s grin looked ready to split his head in two, but he nodded eagerly and ran out of the room, and Roman looked to his abandoned story ideas. Much as he hated this, he would have to leave them that way for a while. He looked around his room and fished out a fresh notepad from a couple of used ones, and at the top wrote:  _Conditions for Patton’s Truce_.

Roman couldn’t think of anything definitive that would be a deal breaker except for the obvious fact that he wouldn’t have any time to work with Thomas, which he doubted Patton would allow. Just in case, he wrote it any way. You never knew, these days. Everything seemed to be getting more and more hectic in their system, like a storm was fast approaching.

Allowing a low groan to come from the back of his throat, Roman pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. This was going to be so much work. Helping Thomas was exhausting, albeit worth it. But when he had to fight through the others just to get what he wanted out of Thomas, well! It was almost as if all his energy was spent just getting to Thomas, rather than going into what they were working on, and it wasn’t fair in the slightest!

Roman took a breath. He was getting himself worked up for no good reason. Patton was no doubt talking to Logan about what to do with Thomas, who himself was doubtless going out for lunch right about now. That left him some time to wander the Mind Palace, or maybe outside it. He had never gone all that far in the Inner World outside the Mind Palace, always wanting to be near Thomas in case inspiration struck. Maybe a walk would be good for his head, though. Allow him to think through things, and what these changes might mean.

That settled, Roman put shoes on and left his room, heading to the front door. On his way there, he saw Virgil hunched over in the common room. “Where are you off to?” Virgil asked.

“No where you need to concern yourself with,” Roman said coolly. He was not in the mood for an argument and he wasn’t about to rise to any bait Virgil might set. But Virgil just growled and went back to doing whatever he was doing…watching TV, maybe. “You have a good day, too,” Roman muttered sarcastically under his breath.

“You say something?” Virgil challenged.

Roman stared at him for a long second. Virgil’s eyes said he was searching for some sort of information. What that could be, Roman had no idea. He shook his head with a scoff before opening the front door, stepping outside. Fighting with Virgil was not worth the time, or the effort. He knew he was supposed to get along with headmates, but if Logan made it difficult, Virgil made it nigh impossible.

However, Roman’s breath and train of thought were sucked away as the fresh air outside hit him like a punch to the gut. He didn’t understand what made the air this way, after all, the Inner World’s whole point was that it was  _inside_ , but Roman wasn’t going to complain if it meant he got to breathe air like this every time he stepped out of the house.

Someone had been out here since he had last gone exploring. There was a little cobblestone path leading around the front area, surrounding which were rows upon rows of different kinds of flowers. It was the kind of beauty that hit Roman in just such a way he could hardly believe he got to see it.

Taking a few steps further in, he could see what could only be a koi pond in the far right corner by a beautifully done cast-iron fence and to his left, a vegetable patch. In the center of the place was a little circle, with stone benches surrounding an old sundial.

It was there Roman chose to sit while he thought over all the information he had been given.

The truce was going to happen. He didn’t have much control over when, but Patton had agreed to wait until Roman said he was ready. So he had some time to think this through, what he wanted and what he wouldn’t stand for, if only he could figure out what that was.

Roman wanted respect, and he wanted Thomas to achieve all his dreams. Roman worked his hardest to make those dreams a reality, even if it were a reality only possible in daydreaming, like the time Thomas wanted to be a dragon for a day.

But was that all that he wanted? After all, if that were his only purpose in the system he wouldn’t be fighting as hard for this as he was, would he? No, Roman wanted Thomas to focus on him. He wanted Thomas to only focus on his dreams and ambitions, the ones that Roman helped him with, until those were achieved, not just work to achieve them and then walk away like he was working on a bucket list.

What did that make him, though? If he wanted to be the sole attention of Thomas’ affections, did that make him the bad guy in this scenario? Was he going to have to reevaluate how he saw himself?

Hang on, though. Patton still hung around him, didn’t he? Patton couldn’t stand to be around anyone who didn’t care about right and wrong, and he certainly couldn’t be around bad guys for long. So maybe he wasn’t a bad guy and maybe he was just…a little obnoxious? That wasn’t much better, but it beat being the bad guy by a long shot. And if he was going to be painted as the bad guy by Logan come the time of the truce, well, he had another thing coming!

“I’ll help you, Thomas. I’ll get you there if it’s the last thing I do…wherever 'there’ is,” Roman muttered, shaking his head.

He stood, resolving to walk around the garden-slash-courtyard a little more, work out some of his pent-up aggression the past few days.

The flowers were beautiful, and he wondered if Patton was the one who had been coming out here to take care of them. He wouldn’t put it past the fatherly personality; after all, Patton loved taking care of things. Roman leaned down to look at one more closely. This plant appeared to be a rose bush at first sight, but he couldn’t fathom for the life of him why a rose bush would have at least five different shades of white to red roses on it. It did make him laugh a little, though. Five different colors, almost as if whoever was growing them picked out a color for each of the headmates here.

Roman reached out and carefully broke the stem off of a bright, cherry-colored rose and twirled it between his fingers. That would be his color, he decided. If everyone had a color to the bush, then bright and vibrant red would be his.

Standing upright with the rose still in his hand, Roman continued to walk. Honestly the only reason he still remembered his and Logan’s fight yesterday was because it was yesterday. They had been going at each other tooth and nail for a while now, and Roman couldn’t recall the last time they had truly gotten along. He remembered never quite agreeing with Virgil, but he could recall a time where he and Logan got along, when Thomas’ thirst to learn fueled his fantasies and Roman would happily make scenarios that not only he and Thomas enjoyed, but Logan gaped at as well.

Where had that camaraderie gone? What happened to cause Logan and Roman to drift apart? Surely it couldn’t be Thomas’ fault, the boy just grew up some, is all. So when did Roman’s ambitions and Logan’s pragmatism start pulling away from each other? Roman was hard-pressed to come up with a time, if only for his own curiosity, and couldn’t find one, much to his frustration.

That led to only more questions, though. Why was he trying so hard to recall? Surely it wasn’t important, so long as Thomas focused on  _him_ now. If Logan couldn’t agree with Roman, then he could take a hike. It was more important that Thomas reached his dreams.

_More important than what?_  he asked himself.  _More important than Logan? Logan is still a personality, a part of the whole that everyone sees as Thomas._

This was getting a bit too metaphysical for Roman to process. But luckily for him, the front door of the Mind Palace opened and Patton bounced out before the thoughts that were bringing a sour taste to his mouth got much hold. “Roman! I have good news! Logan is willing to work with us to find a truce!”

Even though Roman was inwardly grimacing at the thought of having to talk to Logan, he outwardly smiled. “That’s great, Patton.”

Patton bounded to a stop in front of Roman and looked around. “I see you’re liking the garden, huh?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s very nice. Did you make it?”

Patton frowned and shook his head. “Not that I can remember. So if I did it was in my sleep.”

Well that was odd. “I didn’t make it either, though. So if I didn’t, and if you didn’t…”

“Maybe Thomas?” Patton offered. “I mean, he might not know what this place is, but it’s possible that if he stays up later than everyone else he could come out from wherever he is and work on it?”

Patton was lying. Roman didn’t know how he knew, but Patton was definitely lying. There was no way Thomas could design this without understanding what the Inner World was. And if he understood what the Inner World was, then he understood he was part of a system. And if he understood  _that_ , then the others could do more than cofront and influence Thomas’ feelings. They would, in theory, be able to take over control themselves. They couldn’t do that, therefore, Patton was lying. But if Patton didn’t want to share, and Roman wanted what he did out of the truce, then he wasn’t going to push. He needed Patton on his side for this, after all. So he just nodded and hummed. “I guess we won’t know unless someone confesses to it.”

At Patton’s visible relaxation, Roman knew something was up. But he still needed Patton on his side.

This was going to be infuriating.

“Is there anything like this around back?” Roman offered. “I haven’t been out here in quite some time.”

“Out back? Oh! Out back!” Patton exclaimed. “Not quite like this, but the back has its own charm too.”

Roman frowned. “What does that mean?”

Patton just motioned for Roman to follow him and curious, Roman did so.

It didn’t look very big at first glance, Roman thought. There was a giant hedge maybe ten feet away from the back of the Palace. But it only took Roman a second to realize the hedge didn’t mark a border, but was actually part of something else. “Patton. Is that…?”

“It’s a hedge maze!” Patton exclaimed, gesturing at it proudly. “And it changes every time you go in! Isn’t that cool?”

“I’m…not sure that’s the word I would first use,” Roman said, thinking creepy might be better, but he didn’t want to hurt Patton’s feelings. “It certainly…looks like it took a lot of effort.”

“Oh, it did!” Patton exclaimed. “I helped build it, and made some special surprises inside! Do you want to explore it?”

Roman felt his stomach sink. He loved adventure but the thought of being lost in a hedge maze made him irrationally worried. He briefly wondered if Virgil was influencing him before deciding if he was, he wouldn’t be so stupid as to make the anxiety this obvious. Still, if he wanted Patton on his side in this whole thing, then he should probably butter Patton up a little bit. That meant listening to him and his hare-brained ideas, trying to figure out how to keep him excited but not doing anything to risky. For the fatherly personality, he certainly was a huge child sometimes.

But again, the thought of getting stuck in there…really concerned him for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Is it…safe?” Roman finally asked.

“Safe? Of course it’s safe!” Patton exclaimed. “It’s not going to eat you or anything like in  _Harry Potter_! You have too much of a wild imagination, Roman!”

“I’m the physical manifestation of imagination, Patton, I thought that would be a given,” Roman groaned, running a hand down his face. There wasn’t any way he could see getting out of this, so he metaphorically pinched his nose and dived right in. “Let’s go. We should be back by the time Thomas is done with his lunch break, okay?”

“Yes!” Patton cheered. “You won’t regret this, Roman, promise!”

_I already regret this,_  Roman thought to himself. But he just nodded and smiled along as Patton bounced into the maze.


	3. Chapter 3

Logan was half-asleep in bed when he heard the excited, firm knock on his door of two firm taps. Logan rolled over in bed and groaned before sitting up and yelling, “Come in!” as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was no way that knock was anyone’s other than Patton’s. Only Patton would knock to come into his room only twice or risk getting too excited to hold back anything any more.

Patton walked into the room, grinning, but a shy expression on his face. Oh, boy. He wanted something. “Hey, Logan. How you doing? Better, I hope?”

“You’re the one who made me feel angry yesterday afternoon to begin with,” Logan said, trying to keep the irritation he felt niggling in the back of his brain out of his tone. “The argument with Roman happened in the morning, and I had been calming myself down with research when you came in here and refused to follow what’s best for Thomas.”

Patton winced. “Yeah, um, about that…”

Oh, boy. Did Patton want him to back off on helping Thomas? Because that was not going to happen! Patton could beg all he wanted, but Logan was not going to stand for Thomas not learning anything new.

“I was wondering if maybe you’d consider a truce between you, Roman and myself? Figuring out a system of cofronting and influence, so that there are less turf wars to go around?”

Logan paused. That wasn’t the direction he had expected Patton to be going with this. Patton was right-brain oriented, he sided with Roman more often than not. But a truce and a logical system of fronting…made sense. And would actually be beneficial, done correctly. “What would this involve?”

Patton looked surprised. “You mean you’ll do it?”

“If executed properly. Now, what would it involve?” he prompted.

“Mostly just you and Roman and I sitting down somewhere together, and talking out what everybody needs to do with Thomas and what everyone  _wants_  to do with Thomas, and figuring out who can do what when. It’s possible there won’t be a completely fixed schedule, but there will be guidelines, and hopefully communication if everything goes right. Are you in?”

Logan tilted his head to the side and observed Patton. He was fidgety, waiting for an answer which he quite obviously hoped was yes. What were his motivations behind this, though? “Roman isn’t trying to get you to give him most of the time, is he?”

“I just came straight from his room and I fully intend to try and share the time equally once everyone agreed to participate, and Roman signed off on the idea. So I don’t think he’s trying to do anything to get me to give him more time. Not unless he’s secretly hovering over my shoulder right now.”

Logan sighed. His hopes of sleeping were quite obviously dashed, but outside of that, this sounded like a reasonable and useful idea. “I suppose I can agree to this, with a few conditions.”

Patton grinned and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do! What are your conditions?”

“Number one, Roman does not get all of the fronting time,” Logan said, ticking off the list on his fingers. Patton nodded. “Number two, I get the time to help Thomas pursue more education. Not just time where I can help him fix a problem or he needs someone whose emotions won’t cloud his judgement. I want  _actual time_  with him.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course!” Patton exclaimed. “Of course you’ll get actual time with him, I wouldn’t have it any other way! Anything else?”

Logan thought it over. “Number three, we don’t go over this with Virgil until Roman and I agree on some sort of terms. I don’t need two people shouting at me at once over what I want.”

Patton nodded. “I wasn’t going to do that any way. I might let him know about the truce but I wasn’t going to try and have everyone fight over who gets what at once. And I’ll be reserving an amount of time cofronting for Virgil, so you two can’t argue over getting all the time and not allowing Virgil any. He’s a personality here too, he has just as much of a right to help as any of us, since he hasn’t hurt Thomas.”

“Yet,” Logan muttered under his breath. “But, I see your point. That sounds acceptable and you respect my terms and conditions, so I will accept yours, I suppose.”

Patton jumped up and down. “Oh, yes! Thank you thank you thank you! I’m super sure this will really help Thomas in the long run, you won’t regret it!”

Logan watched Patton’s excitement with a touch of amusement. The personality was always so excitable. And while it was often draining, there were moments of pride when Logan got Patton to laugh at something he said.

“Are we starting the truce now?” Logan asked. “As in, are we defining the terms now?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I’m giving you and Roman time to come up with a list of things you absolutely will not allow on the table during the truce. Obviously, you can’t say you want all of the time, but you, for instance, could put that you need at least some time for learning with Thomas, like I’m sure Roman said he needs some time for daydreaming, or working towards his dreams, or whatever Roman is focusing on lately. It changes a lot,” Patton rambled. “But no, you have some time to make a list of stuff. No pressure, okay?”

Logan nodded. “Understood. I will set about that list as soon as possible, then. Thank you for this. I am sure that less arguments in head space will be good for Thomas’ psyche.”

Patton smiled, gave Logan a thumbs-up, and was out of the room as soon as he was in it.

Logan shut the door behind him and yawned. He had stayed up all night last night trying to prove something that he had read in a book once. Now there was no way he could get to sleep with the idea of a truce running through his head, but it wouldn’t hurt to write down some terms and conditions, of course.

He looked around his room and eventually found a piece of paper and pencil that wasn’t either broken or a useless nub that hurt to write with. Immediately he put down  _Thomas has adequate time with me to focus on studies._

That was a good start, but what else did he want?  _Roman does not argue with me when it is time to switch cofronting, and leaves without argument when my allotted time starts, no matter the situation._

Yes, that was important too. He did not want Roman whining about wanting a turn in front when all the good it was going to do was make Thomas hear them even clearer than a nagging sensation in the back of his mind and question his own sanity. If they weren’t careful, Thomas might find out about them and want them to integrate, which would be decidedly not good. Logan couldn’t imagine trying to integrate with Roman, it would be too painful! Same with Patton. Virgil he could understand working with a little. Virgil could identify problems and Logan could work to solve them, and they could possibly form a cohesive unit. But the other two? That would not be wise.

That didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of Logan’s fears of integration and dormancy, however. Ever since Thomas had left school, the others seemed to want him helping at front less and less. As Thomas created more vines, more stories, got more creative, Roman thrived and Logan was pushed to the wayside. Logan felt a bit like an abandoned toy. His use was only good if someone else worked with him. If no one did, then he was bound to be forgotten. And if he was forgotten, he would have no real option except to go dormant, essentially become nothing, no longer exist in the Inner World. Maybe he should write that down.

_No one will force me into dormancy, or make me feel like I would be better off dormant._  He didn’t know if that was something that was likely to happen at this point, but he wasn’t taking any chances, not with this.

Integration was another beast altogether. Yes, in a way he would still exist, but he wouldn’t be himself. He wouldn’t have his identity to fall back on, to know he was Logan, the personality who loved to learn and loved to figure out how things worked. Who was logical in emotionally charged situations and came to sound conclusions and solutions. He’d just be…another part of Thomas. And while that wouldn’t be a bad thing, it was scary to think about not having a sense of self. It would be so intrinsically tangled with everyone else he would hardly be able to tell where he ended and where Patton or Roman or Virgil or even Thomas himself began.

This was too much. Too much thinking about bad things that he never wanted to pay much attention to in the first place. What should he do to distract himself and eliminate this problem?

His stomach growled. Ah, yes, food. Food might be a way to distract himself from these problems and give himself something to focus on outside his own internal fears. Like what really lives at the bottom of the ocean–no! He was  _not_  going to think about that or his name wasn’t Logan Sanders!

…This was going to be a long day, Logan could already tell.

He walked out of his room and through the Common Area, where he noticed Virgil sulking in a ball on the couch. Wondering what that was about, but electing not to ask, Logan continued his way to the kitchen, trying to force himself to stop analyzing everything long enough to focus on  _one_  thing. Now, what should he make…?

Just as Logan finished making one of his signature stews, Virgil walked into the kitchen, hands stuffed deep in their pockets. He grunted a, “Hey,” and walked to the cabinets, pulling out a bowl.

“You want some stew?” Logan asked.

“Sure,” Virgil said, offering the bowl out. “Hey, you know why Patton’s been bouncing around today? I could hear him in my room earlier he was so excited.”

Logan hummed and considered his options here. Obviously Virgil wasn’t going to be in the truce at the very beginning, but he held a certain kinship with the other left-brain personality that inclined him to sharing what was going on. “Patton is trying to bring about a truce between everyone about cofronting with Thomas.”

Virgil blinked but said nothing. This was clearly news to him, then. “Was he going to tell me?” Virgil asked, irritation in the undertones of his voice.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” Logan said. “However, he wanted to smooth things over between myself and Roman before adding you to the mix, which I thought was wise. Everyone shouting at each other about what they want is just…destined to lead to nowhere, you understand what I’m saying?”

Virgil looked like he had been slapped but quickly recovered. “I guess…still would have liked him to ask me before trying to get you two to agree to something, so I’m not backed into a corner, but…”

Logan subtly winced as he got a bowl of stew for himself. Yeah, that was going to be awkward. Patton asking Virgil about it and Virgil saying he already knew. But Patton didn’t say Logan couldn’t tell Virgil, so it was all good, he supposed. Once Logan had his own bowl of stew, he tried to ease the blow. “I’m sure he was going to ask you sometime today.”

Virgil scoffed. “He ran right past me as if I didn’t exist, and I was in the Common Room.”

Doubly awkward. Logan cleared his throat. “Well, if you like I could keep you company? The right-brains are out in the hedge maze so we have the place to ourselves.”

Virgil shrugged, grabbing a spoon and starting to eat. “You can, I guess. Won’t make your conscience feel better, though, I guarantee it.”

Logan sighed. “Why do you always have to announce everyone’s hidden agendas?”

“It’s fun,” Virgil said with a shrug. “Besides, I like showing people what’s obvious about other people’s plans, but I’m not allowed to talk about the Gay Agenda.”

Logan, to his credit, gave a dry laugh. “There is no Gay Agenda other than ‘be yourself without fear’.”

“And you’re saying that’s not a reasonable agenda?” Virgil asked.

“I’m saying it shouldn’t have to be one,” Logan said, grabbing a spoon for himself and leaning against the counter.

Virgil hummed his agreement and continued to eat. “So, this truce…you think it’ll help?” he asked.

Logan shrugged. “Who knows? I know that if it does then it will certainly benefit Thomas, and it would be hard to be more dysfunctional as a system than where we are now.”

“Could help and can’t hurt philosophy, huh?” Virgil asked, nodding his understanding. “I understand that on some level, but at the same time I also just think…what do you possibly have to gain from it?”

Logan shrugged. “I can guarantee some time with Thomas that is completely undivided. Just learning about things that we both want to, I can’t have that now and I could then.”

Virgil sighed. “Well, then, this truce would be completely useless to me. Because I’m  _never_  allowed to cofront around Thomas, just have influence because otherwise 'I’ll scare him into a panic attack,’” Logan could hear the air quotes in Virgil’s tone. “So if I have no benefit, why include me anyway, right?”

“Virgil, like I said, that’s not what Patton meant. He just thought it would be easier to corner two people at a time first.”

“Whatever,” Virgil grumbled. “I want to make a truce with you.”

Logan frowned. “What kind of truce?”

“Neither of us want Princey or Dad-guy to have full control over this thing, right? So make sure we have at least fifty percent of the time around Thomas, if not more. We both know Roman will try to fight for more time if he can see any way to get to it.”

Logan frowned. That was true, Roman would fight tooth and nail to have full control if he got his way, and Patton frequently sided with Roman on arguments. This truce could be completely skewed in their favor, and they could completely screw Logan and Virgil over. Well, not on Logan’s watch. “I’ll keep an eye out for it, Virgil, and I won’t settle for anything less than fifty percent.”

Virgil offered him a slight smile before leaving with a, “Thanks for the stew, nerd.”

Logan continued to eat in thought. Surely Patton wouldn’t try and skew everything in Roman’s favor, right? He seemed sincere enough…but of course, “seeming” and “actually being” were two entirely different things. This could just be an elaborate ploy to get him to think he was fronting more than he actually was. And who did those right-brain idiots think they were, trying to trick him like that?! He had a right to front, just like everyone else, fair and square! It wasn’t unreasonable to ask for some time alone, Roman and Patton certainly seemed to get it in spades, while Logan hardly got any time anymore, and Virgil…well, Virgil had his problems but he also helped motivate Thomas in ways neither of them seemed to notice!

“You think you’re so clever, huh?” Logan asked with a sarcastic laugh. “Well, you’re not! And you’re not getting away with this, not on my watch!”

He stalked back to his room with his stew to work on a solution to this. He was not going to be the fool, not by a long shot! He grabbed his paper from before and considered what to write. It had to make a point…

Logan obviously wrote down that he wanted equal fronting time to Roman’s amount, and he could angle his way for more in the discussion if he really needed to. But what else did he need to write down? If this was a conspiracy against him he needed all of his bases covered.

Patton sometimes snuck around to influence him and Thomas, and obviously that would have to stop if he was on Roman’s side of this whole thing. Logan scoffed to himself. Roman didn’t have a leg to stand on; he was irrational, too fanciful to see the pragmatism that would prevent what he wanted from happening, and it would ultimately lead to Thomas’ downfall. And naturally, Logan would then have to pick up the pieces.

But if he could stop the break before it started, he could prove himself to be the superior personality in this field and therefore the one most deserving to front with Thomas.

…Why did he even have to prove that, anyway? He would have thought with all his years of helping Thomas in school the others would see by now that he was clearly the most helpful. He did everything he needed to do to organize and finish work, he helped keep Thomas excited to learn, and he protected Thomas from heartbreak a time or two as well.

Sure, Virgil could claim that he had helped Thomas stay away from potentially disastrous situations, Roman could say he calmed Thomas down after the bad event occurred, and Patton could…do that sponge thing with emotions, but Logan was the one who could well and truly protect Thomas from the fallout as it was falling.

Logan had the ability to push all of his emotions aside leaving nothing but cold, precise logic behind to deal with a mess. If someone was trying to hurt Thomas, either a so-called “friend” or a crush, Logan would come to the front and block out Thomas’ emotions so they could just observe what needed to be done and do it. Later, the emotions might show up and Logan could process them in a more effective way, but he couldn’t process and fix everything at the same time, that was just plain unreasonable.

So he had his methods of protecting Thomas and they worked out just fine. They could fix the problem and go on with their day. Logan would remind Thomas to eat or go to bed when necessary, but for the most part during their school years he would primarily focus on learning.

There was the time when Thomas wasn’t learning that he called Roman to the front for, and Logan was mildly confused about that every time; those sorts of stories Roman would cook up were draining for Logan to deal with, so he rarely stuck around, but Logan couldn’t understand why Thomas might want Roman over him. Sure, his stories had some success and he enjoyed making videos, but…all of that was just…fluff material, nothing he saw really worth pursuing given the odds of it actually working and giving Thomas a name for himself.

But Thomas and Roman kept at it, and as the school years dwindled away, Logan began to get worried. He was being called up front less and less, and Roman was getting more and more control, and this didn’t look good for Logan at all. The longer Roman stayed at front, the more convinced Logan became that he was becoming obsolete. His only solution was to stay at front.

And that was what the others couldn’t see. They were trying to thwart his plans for getting up front, then they were thwarting his plans of staying in existence, and Logan did not take kindly to the thought of them trying to get rid of him.

No, he didn’t take kindly to that at all. He had to do something about it, and that was what he would do when Patton tried to start this truce. He would shut Roman down every chance he got in order to maintain his position at front as much as possible, and he would succeed.

He  _had_  to.


	4. Chapter 4

Virgil could hear Logan stalk into his room and slam the door, which caused a smirk to appear on the normally anxious personality’s face. Normally, he’d like the idea of a truce. He could do without all the yelling around the Mind Palace, it was messing with his sleep schedule and made Thomas feel bad enough Virgil couldn’t influence him much without sending him over the edge. But it would have been nice for, you know, Patton to run the  _system-wide_  truce by  _him_  as well.

With a scowl, Virgil finished his stew and placed the empty bowl on his nightstand. He was not in the mood to do much of anything but sulk and get rid of the pent-up anger he had at not being allowed to work with the others.

At first, Virgil had wondered if the reason the others weren’t being as nice to him as when they had first gotten here was just because they were settling in and didn’t need his help with figuring out where everything was any more. After a while he wondered if it was because of something he had done or said. But eventually he realized that it wasn’t his fault at all; it was  _theirs_  for not accepting him for who he was, even if that wasn’t necessarily what they wanted him to be.

Virgil had been the first one here besides Thomas, he had a hand in creating the others, you would think that they would be a bit more grateful, but no, of course they weren’t. All they saw him as was “the one who made Thomas worse” because of  _course_  they couldn’t understand the fear that he felt, and that he was comprised of that one emotion more than anything else, and originally, as a fragment before he developed, that was his one purpose: to hold fear.

Patton understood a little better than the others, because over the years Patton had developed beyond a lot of just being Morality and had taken on the role of regulating Thomas’ emotions along with Virgil. And Virgil appreciated the help most days. It was just on days like today, where no one ran anything by him, that he wanted to raze the place to the ground, find Thomas, shake him awake and instruct him to fix this mess, because the others would definitely listen to him if no one else.

Virgil’s eyes got hot in the back and he grimaced. He really didn’t want to cry over this, it really wasn’t worth it. None of this was. The hate, the fear, the negativity that emanated from around him wasn’t worth staying around for. But he had a job to do, to help Thomas, whether the others liked it or not. So he stayed. He helped Thomas have boundaries and care about the things he was passionate about and kept him quiet when he could get into trouble for being too loud.

Why couldn’t anyone see that he was here to help Thomas? That he was supposed to have some sense of fear because without it, he wouldn’t know when was and wasn’t a good time to do something, where there was or wasn’t a danger, and about half a million other things that fear in small doses could provide. Virgil managed the overwhelming fear so those feelings didn’t cover everything to the point where no one could process them. He did it so they didn’t have to. No thank you needed or given, he just did it because he wanted to help Thomas, because he was there to keep Thomas safe.

He had to be honest with himself, though. No one really wanted him in the Mind Palace. Oh, you could make arguments for Logan or Patton, but even they had their limitations on what they could tolerate. Virgil shook his head and curled up on his bed, willing the stinging sensation in his eyes to go away. He wasn’t wanted, but that was a good thing. If he did wind up going away, then there would be no one to miss. There would be no one to miss him. No responsibility for his actions.

No responsibility for his actions. That was a scary thought.

Virgil looked outside his room to see if anyone would be watching him if he moved around the house. Logan’s door was open, so that was out. Guess Virgil would have to do what he normally did when he wanted to talk to Thomas. He closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He found a place that was comfortable in his room and sat down, leaning back and continuing to measure his breathing. Slowly, but surely, Virgil felt himself start to melt away from his room and wind up in a new place, one that he couldn’t find in the Mind Palace, but one that was very important to him nonetheless. The walls were a soft cream, and there was a queen-sized bed pushed up against one wall. Posters were plastered everywhere, about  _Steven Universe_  and stage productions Virgil recognized from every year of Thomas’ life, and soft colors all around.

Virgil felt a certain sense of calm overtake him, his fear and self-loathing being forcibly pushed onto the back burner by his company. He knew all of this before he even opened his eyes. When he felt his feet lower onto a soft rug, he finally opened his eyes to see the very man he had been protecting since they were both five years old, sitting on his bed and working on his computer. A smile grew on his lips without his permission and for once, knowing he wouldn’t be judged, he let it. He climbed onto the mattress next to the man and sighed. “It’s been a long day, Thomas,” he said.

Thomas glanced up from his laptop, which was showing a first-person perspective of the outside world, and he said, “I’m always here to listen, Virgil. What’s up?”

“Oh you know, same old same old. Everyone’s doing their thing, walking, talking, larger than life, and  _bam!_  Out of the blue I hear that everyone is trying to make a truce about all the in-fighting…without me.”

Thomas winced. “Ouch.”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Virgil said, voice dripping sarcasm. “Not good in the slightest, and I’m really not in the mood for doing whatever they really want me to do in terms of sitting down shutting up and agreeing to whatever they come up with. So naturally I decided to do a little bit of scheming…”

“Virgil,” Thomas said with a half-glare, “You know that your schemes often wind up hurting someone in the process of everything.”

Virgil shrugged. “I’m just trying to keep them from agreeing right away so I can join in on the talking, you know? It’s not such a bad thing.”

Thomas sighed. “Virge, it’s still not a good idea.”

“I know, I know. It might help if you could come back with me and help sort things out?” Virgil proposed hopefully.

Thomas sighed and looked back at the computer. “I still don’t know how, I’m sorry. I’m frontstuck.”

Virgil nodded solemnly. “The others think that you don’t know about us. I haven’t found it in me to correct them, so it remains one of those things that I know about that the others don’t. Like how Patton lies or Logan has feelings or Roman can be really insecure at times.”

“I’d like to meet them all, some day,” Thomas said. “Why don’t you ever bring them here?”

“They don’t trust me,” Virgil said with a sigh. “You don’t trust me sometimes.”

“When you’re bouncing off the walls or having a panic attack I get…concerned,” Thomas settled on. “And you usually work up the body into a panic in the process. Doesn’t mean I don’t trust you.”

“Well, fine, you like the others better than me, then,” Virgil said. “They have more use to you than me, don’t deny it!”

Thomas shook his head. “Virge, I know you don’t believe me, but I do care about you. And Patton, and Logan, and Roman, even if I haven’t properly seen them and only hear them talking sometimes. I’ve been thinking about creating a series featuring them, can you imagine the looks on their faces if I dressed up like your descriptions of them and sat down and recorded stuff?”

Virgil snorted. “That would be hilarious to watch. I’d be the villain, naturally.”

“You’d only be the villain if you really want to be the villain, Virge,” Thomas laughed.

“Well, of course I want to be the villain, that’s half the fun!” Virgil exclaimed. “Maybe I get a redemption arc, though. That would be nice.”

“I hear you,” Thomas agreed. “I really enjoy redemption arcs anyway, and you’re too good of a person to always be the villain.”

Virgil scoffed. “Okay, now you’re just making things up.”

“Maybe so,” Thomas said with a slight chuckle. “But maybe I’m not. You’ve been helping me balance out my fear for a solid…twenty-three years now.”

Virgil hummed, acknowledging he heard Thomas but not adding any more to the discussion. As much as Thomas always said that he accepted Virgil, Virgil never felt like he really understood it. And there were the days where Virgil came down to Thomas’ room and just made Thomas so anxious he couldn’t even look Virgil in the eye and just…froze.

Those were the days that always stuck in Virgil’s mind; the ones where Thomas could barely stand Virgil being in the same room as him, flinching away from every move as if he was about to be burned. Virgil hated seeing him like that, and hated even more that he was the one to cause such a reaction.

“Hey,” Thomas said, nudging Virgil in the shoulder. “I know you often don’t believe it, but you  _do_  help. You  _are_  a part of this system. And you don’t have to worry about that being revoked, ever. You’re too important. Not only to functioning, but to me. I’ve known you since I was  _five,_  Virge. I can’t imagine life without you.”

“What if the others decide I can’t be around you any more?” Virgil asked. “If they say I’m too much of a problem, and they always keep an eye on me so I can’t come here, what then? Sure, I could occasionally talk, try to communicate with you, but I wouldn’t get to come see you. You’re a big reason I haven’t gone dormant already.”

“Virgil, I’m flattered, but you need reasons to live beyond another person. It can be for as something as big as writing the next Great American Novel, or as small as having pancakes for breakfast on Sundays, but that reason needs to be important, and unattached to a person,” Thomas said.

“This better not be your way of telling me you’re going dormant,” Virgil said seriously.

“Of course I’m not going dormant,” Thomas said. “But I’m not leaving front in the foreseeable future either. So you’re gonna have to get used to sometimes not being able to see me, especially with this truce that has you worked up. So find another reason? You might need it one day and it’s important that it’s not something you could easily lose.”

“Okay, I’ll think of something,” Virgil said sullenly. “But I still want to come here and talk to you.”

Thomas held his arms out. “Permission to hug?”

Virgil nodded and leaned into Thomas’ warm embrace. “You’re always welcome here. When I say you need another reason to live, it’s not saying I don’t want you here. It’s saying that putting your whole reason to live in another living person is not healthy, or safe.”

“Because people change, or leave your life, or are in general unpredictable,” Virgil sighed. “I know. It’s kinda hard for you to leave without going dormant, though.”

“I know. But the fact remains, it’s not a good idea. Just because I’m going to be around in the foreseeable future doesn’t mean I couldn’t split and some new host will show up some day, and we won’t know where I am, or if I’m still around. This system is stable, not set in stone.” Thomas sighed and gave Virgil a squeeze. “I’m glad you visit me, though. I don’t know how you get here or why the others can’t, but I’m glad I get to talk to someone who I hear in my head all the time.”

All the time…“Does that mean you hear the others’ arguments?”

“Either through you or just because they’re loud and I’m thinking over what to do anyway and listening for their opinions. When it’s a normal dispute I just get feelings. When they start shouting I can actually hear words.”

Virgil’s eyebrows shot up his head. “Maybe I should tell the others about that. It might give them a hint about cooling their jets a bit.”

“Hey, they need to let each other know they’re frustrated, just like any singlets would, that’s just their way of doing it. If they could stop shouting when trying to get me to do something that would be great, but unless you can control that…”

Virgil laughed. “Please. Nobody listens to me in the Mind Palace.”

“What?” Thomas asked, and Virgil realized he had never outright stated that everybody disregarded him every chance they got. “Never?”

“Not unless I’m talking to them outright,” Virgil said with a shrug, continuing on. “And then, the conversation is usually along the lines of something I did wrong, rather than right.”

“What you said earlier, about sitting down and shutting up and listening to whatever they decided, then…they really aren’t asking your input? I mean, it’s still bad if they try and start the whole thing without everyone’s approval, but would they really just…”

“Tell me what they decided and expect me to follow along? Yeah, they would,” Virgil said with a scowl. “They forget sometimes that I have a mind of my own, which I’d like to give them a piece of for the way they treat me.”

“I’d like to give them a piece of my mind too, if that’s the way they’re treating you,” Thomas said, looking visibly upset.

“It’s okay, Thomas,” Virgil said, holding up a hand and pulling out of his hug. “I can handle myself, and they have their own underlying problems anyway. Patton takes on every responsibility he can and blames himself when the pressure causes him to crumble, Logan and Roman have too much pride for their own good, and both think they know what’s best for everyone, because it’s best for them.”

Thomas frowned. “Is that why there was shouting yesterday about memorizing my lines versus reading that book I’ve wanted to for about two weeks?”

“That’s it,” Virgil said. “That’s also probably what gave Patton his crazy idea about a truce. Speaking of, I suppose I should get back and make sure that they haven’t burned everything to the ground in my absence, or signed a treaty dictating that I pay all the damages done through the war.”

Thomas laughed. “Yeah, okay. Visit sometimes, though. I get lonely.”

“Yeah, I will,” Virgil promised. “You know I will, considering you’re the only one who can calm me down.”

Thomas chuckled and Virgil closed his eyes, willing himself back to his room.

* * *

Virgil came back into his room with a jolt forward and a gasp. It always felt weird returning from Thomas’ room, because it felt like he was coming back into an external body from an internal world, although he knew that Thomas was  _somewhere_  in the Mind Palace, not in his own head.

A quick inspection proved no signs of damage to his room, and Virgil smelled no smoke and didn’t hear any shouting, so the truce must not have been proposed yet. The way he saw it happening was everything ending in disaster. He had made Logan wary of the others cutting into his time in order for the truce to (with any luck) fall apart on the first attempt. If he was lucky he would be invited to the second. But Roman from the get-go also had issues with his ego. The two would butt heads faster than any territorial bulls.

Virgil kind of wanted to see the fall-out of that, but at the same time really didn’t want to consider it because of what that would do to Thomas. If he could hear the two shouting he could hear what they called each other when they got upset, and Thomas was a gentle soul, as evidenced by Patton coming about after only one poorly-timed joke and an upset friend. If the two tore each other limb from limb…Virgil didn’t want to think about what that might do to Thomas.

Oh jeez, what had he done?!

Virgil sat down heavily on his bed and put his head in his hands. There was no way to stop Logan once he was on a roll. There would be no deterring him, and Roman wasn’t even an option to speak to. Patton might at least hear Virgil out, but he’d probably be too upset that Virgil tried to throw the whole truce out the window to trust him in any future endeavors down this path. He made his bed, now he had to lie in it.

…That didn’t mean he couldn’t try to soften the blow, though. Maybe he could warn Patton? He might have to lie about how he knew about the truce, maybe say he overheard Patton talking about it. But then he could explain why Logan was going to be on the warpath.

No, he didn’t think that would work. Patton wasn’t naturally anxious, he’d say that Logan angry couldn’t be that bad or that he could smooth things out with the logical personality before he tried anything with Roman. Which Virgil knew would only end with more shouting, this time directed at Patton, making the whole scenario ten times worse.  _No, no, you screwed it up Virgil, you screwed it up and they’ll never get along now and it’s all your fault your fault your–breathe, Virgil, breathe. You don’t know that yet, you don’t know how this is going to go, everything could work out fine…_ He didn’t believe that but he did his breathing exercises anyway before he sent himself into a panic attack.

Breathe in for four…“What happens with the others is their choice, not mine,” he muttered to himself.

Hold for seven…Breathe out for eight…“If something is my fault, the best thing I can do is fix it…”

Breathe in for four…“And own up to the responsibility I need to face.”

He continued his slow breathing for another minute or so before he dared even stand up from his bed. He didn’t feel woozy, just slightly nauseous. He knew this wasn’t going to end well, but there was nothing he could do to change that fact now. He just had to help work through the fall out. And damage control was what he was good at.

Now, what could happen? Obviously, Logan and Roman could start to shout at each other, or at Patton. If that was the case, Virgil could come in and ask if they had considered Thomas might be able to hear them. That would stop that in its tracks.

Anything else? Roman and Logan may refuse to speak to each other for a while. Virgil could reassure Patton that the failed idea wasn’t his fault for failing, and that he had absolutely nothing to blame himself for, since Patton would blame himself immediately after the fall-out.

Patton might realize what was going on and get mad at Virgil. Virgil swallowed. He deserved it if that was the case. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but Patton would be justified if that was his reaction. Virgil would just ride out the storm and try not to panic because of it.

His mind continued to work on damage control for hours, trying to find every way it could go wrong and find solutions for that problem. He worked so long and so hard at it that he eventually fell asleep where he sat.


	5. Chapter 5

Patton was nervous,  _very_  nervous. It had been one week since this whole truce idea got started, and Roman and Logan had both been very busy either in their rooms or around the house, each carrying around something to write with and something to write on should an idea occur to them. Patton had glanced at the lists and they seemed unnecessarily long, and really, he knew that at this point, he wouldn’t be able to keep all of their unchangeable, will-not-budge conditions for the truce. Either of them.

Roman was sitting in the common room, reading and re-reading his list as Patton flitted around nervously, making sure that anything that could be thrown was secured, there were enough water bottles for everyone, and that Logan’s spot had toast and a jar of Crofter’s nearby, while Roman’s had movie theater-style popcorn, right down to the salted butter.

“Patton, I don’t know why you’re so nervous,” Roman said, lying back into the couch and sighing. “There might be a little dispute here or there, but I’m sure we can come to a satisfactory conclusion.”

For his part, Patton didn’t immediately turn to Roman and go on a fifty thousand word rant about why he was so worried and about everything he could think about going wrong. He was so nervous he was actually surprised that he wasn’t being influenced by Virgil. What he did instead, was force his hands to stay still at his sides, keep his legs from continuing their frantic pacing, and simply faced Roman fully. “I’m going to be honest, Roman, I think I’m allowed to be a little nervous. I really want this to go well, you know? And yeah, your confidence is nice and all, but the fact of the matter is that I’m still worried. I want Thomas to benefit from this. I don’t want him possibly investigating what’s wrong during one of our fights. I don’t want him feeling drained because all of the body’s energy is coming to our arguing. I just…I want him to be happy, Roman, and I feel like it’s really hard for him to be happy right now. I mean, if you were hiding somewhere around here, and we had no idea where you were, but we were always fighting about what you should do, wouldn’t  _you_  feel tired, or even upset, because of what was going on?”

Roman shrugged. “Possibly. Possibly not. We can’t understand how Thomas in-headspace feels. We can only gauge how he feels if we’re cofronting, and that necessarily means most of our awareness is outside the body in any case. I know you empathize, Patton, and that’s a valuable skill. But it also means you feel things much more intensely, and I think that nervousness you’re feeling is just normal nerves ramped up because of how easily you leave yourself at the mercy of your emotions.”

Patton fidgeted with the sweater around his neck and nodded. “You might have a point. Okay, how do you recommend I calm down, then?”

“Perhaps focusing on something else may help?” Roman offered. “Ah, I see Logan approaching us now, I think that the discussion is about to begin in any case!”

Logan walked over to them stiffly, sitting on the opposite side of the couch from Roman, taking the toast and jelly as Patton had hoped he would. “Let’s get this over with,” Logan said in a huff.

His tone had the hairs on the back of Patton’s neck standing on end, but Patton nodded anyway. “Okay, what are everybody’s conditions, first of all? We may not be able to meet all of them, but we’ll try our hardest to make them meet, sound all right?”

“All right,” Logan huffed. “My first condition is that I have no less time to front than Roman here. Meaning that if he gets fifty percent of the time to front, I must have the other fifty percent. I won’t stand for anything less, as my time with Thomas is just as important as his.”

As Logan talked, Patton nodded along and Roman’s head snapped to him, instantly making Patton realize this was going to be harder than initially anticipated. “Don’t tell me you are actually agreeing with him! Patton, I help Thomas with his career! This…this nerd has no appreciation for what I do! Don’t just let him spit in my face like this!”

“Actually, Roman, Logan wasn’t insulting you at all. All he was saying was that he had just as much of a right as you to front, and his request is actually pretty reasonable, all things considered. Fronting as much as you do can be managed with a little bit of effort, and it certainly wouldn’t  _hurt_  Thomas, would it?” Patton reasoned.

Roman spluttered. “That’s…that’s nonsense! Patton, I implore you to see reason! I do more good to Thomas than him, therefore I should be the one to front more!”

“Come again?” Logan asked in an icy tone, and Patton’s head moved so quickly to the logical personality Patton was mildly worried he would get whiplash.

“You heard me perfectly clear!” Roman exclaimed. “I do more to help Thomas than you do! That means I deserve more time at front!”

Logan adjusted his glasses and Patton cleared his throat, shaking his head wildly and crossing his arms over his chest before bringing them to his sides, silently but emphatically imploring Logan to keep a lid on his tongue.

“I believe you have myself confused with you,” Logan said, his voice holding no emotion, and void of any anger, which only proved to Patton how enraged Logan really must be. “I am the one who helps Thomas and it is in fact you who does more harm than good. Your fantasies give Thomas an unhealthy attachment to your unreality, making it harder for him to focus on the real world when his stressors become greater. At least Patton has some use by occasionally lifting Thomas’ spirits and providing positive emotion when he learns, further reinforcing the desire to pursue knowledge, but your uses only go so far as to feed into unhealthy delusions that really should never be explored in the first place. If anyone is useless around here, it would be you, but I would daresay that you are more harmful than useless.”

Roman jumped to his feet. “That is not true and you know it! You are simply jealous of the bond that Thomas and I share!” he roared.

“Oh, sure!” Logan scoffed, also standing. “Because your ‘bond’ shows so much! He sees you as nothing more than a fantasy figure, someone who he wants to be but can never become! You’re an unattainable goal that leads Thomas dangerously close to delusions of grandeur when you front!”

Patton’s hands flew to his ears as he instinctively tried to block the bad words and negativity from entering his head. But it was too late, the damage had been done.

Virgil walked into the room and Patton looked over, noticing him before the others did, thankfully. He rushed over to Virgil and hissed, “Now’s not a good time!”

The anxious personality looked a little shocked, and held out the bowl in his hands. “I…was just putting this in the sink?” he said, confusion in his voice. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, Virgil, just go back to your room once you returned the bowl.”

“Awful lot of shouting for nothing,” Virgil said, and if possible he looked angrier and more dejected than when Patton had first spoke to him. “Better be careful; have you ever considered Thomas might be able to hear you guys when you reach that kind of volume?”

Virgil walked off but Patton stood in place, stunned. He had never thought of that, and that would be super majorly awful levels of not good! He turned around to find Logan and Roman about to tear each other limb from limb, and he jumped in between them. “Guys! Hold up! Thomas might be able to hear you, you’re shouting so loud! Do you really want him feeding off your anger?!” he exclaimed desperately.

Roman glared at Patton and Logan in turn. Logan just analyzed Patton closely, presumably looking for any kind of lie. “My position remains the same,” Logan said cooly. “Both of you are harmful to Thomas’ overall health to some extent, and really, I should be trusted with the bulk of fronting, but I suppose 'baby steps’ are occasionally needed. For which I will accept equal fronting time as Princey here. No less.”

“Okay. Okay…” Patton breathed. “We can arrange that, all right, Logan? Equal cofronting time. We can arrange that, can’t we, Roman?”

“He called me harmful to Thomas,” Roman seethed.

“You called him less important than you and hurt him like he hurt you. You both said some things that were harmful. But we need to come to a resolution on this, don’t we?” he asked with pointed looks at both of them. When he got two sullen nods, he said, “Then let’s see if we can come to a compromise.”

The three sat down on the sofa and Patton grabbed a piece of paper, writing down that Logan and Roman would get equal fronting time each week. “What were some of your conditions, Roman?” Patton asked.

“I want Thomas’ work on his dreams to come first. That means memorizing lines, auditions, and the like come before holing up in his room and reading,” Roman said, nose wrinkling at the second half of his statement.

“I can’t guarantee that every time, but what if I say that work comes before leisure activities? That way if Logan decides to take a class at a community college he can, and you won’t skip it just for an audition? And when you need to practice lines, Logan can’t come in and demand you drop everything for him to read?” Patton proposed.

Roman grumbled under his breath before saying, “Fine.”

Logan made a satisfactory noise in the back of his throat. “I must sign up for another class soon if that’s the case,” he mused. “I would love to further our knowledge without interruption.”

Patton cleared his throat as Roman started to glare at Logan again. “Guys, please, play nice, we have to consider Thomas here. I know this isn’t easy, but we’ll make it work. I’m going to put another condition on the truce, saying that just because work comes before leisure, that does not mean that the fronting time can be split unevenly without the person being shorted time getting that time back later. So both of you have to consider the consequences when you claim something is for work.”

“Okay, I guess…” Roman muttered.

“That does make sense, I suppose,” Logan agreed.

“Nowhere on this am I going to tell you guys you have to like each other, but I would appreciate you playing nice. Keeping disputes to yourselves when possible, sorting it out quietly, that sort of thing. Acting civil, that’s all I ask. Is there anything else about cofronting you would like to make conditions?”

“I would like forty percent of the fronting time,” Roman said. “Preferably using most of that alone or with you only.”

“As would I,” Logan said. “I understand fifty percent may be too much to ask for, but I would prefer to share my time at front with no one but Thomas and perhaps you, Patton. I certainly don’t want to share it with Virgil.”

“Goodness, no!” Roman laughed. “I would  _hate_  having to cofront with Virgil, can you imagine the trouble he would cause?”

Patton felt his eyes starting to get hot at the back as he realized he’d have to shoot this idea down and stop them from badmouthing Virgil. Sure, Patton wasn’t the guy’s biggest fan but he was still a person who deserved respect, like any of them did! Patton could just as easily be the one who dealt with Thomas’ fear, it’s not like Virgil could help that he processed it! He had to think…had to think…had to come up with a way that he could get them to allow more time for Virgil…a-ha! “I don’t know if I can do that, guys,” Patton said, cutting through Roman’s laughter and Logan’s amusement.

“Why not?” Roman said, hostilities rising once more.

“Well, that only leaves twenty percent of fronting time for me and Virgil both, and that’s hardly fair. I don’t mind getting less time, but that’s too little. Can you settle for a third of the time up front?”

Roman looked at Logan and Logan looked at Roman. Patton looked between the two desperately. “I suppose,” Roman said evenly.

“Yes, that is not optimal but it would be satisfactory,” Logan agreed.

Patton sighed in relief and wrote down that Roman and Logan would have a third of the time fronting each. His eyes still felt hot and guilt was eating at him. He was lying entirely too much lately, and he couldn’t stand up for Virgil like he wanted without blowing this whole thing, and he needed the truce! He felt like the worst scum of the Earth, throwing Virgil under the bus like that, but he felt like he didn’t have a choice. “Was there anything else?” Patton asked, clearing his throat. He hoped he didn’t sound like he was going to cry.

“All my other points can either wait until a later time or have been summarized in what has already been said,” Logan said, opening the jar of Crofter’s for the first time during this discussion and starting to spread it on his toast. “I have no objections to signing this with the promise that we will review it on a later date.”

“The giant nerd does admittedly make a good point,” Roman said with a shrug. “So long as we make sure this works and leave room for adjustment, this should be a good start for the rules.”

Patton nodded and wrote down as a final condition that the truce could be adjusted as needed and then signed his name at the bottom. Logan pulled out a pen and signed his name as well, and the Roman took Patton’s and signed his name with a flourish. Patton picked up the truce and stood. “I’ll…uh, I’ll be keeping this in my, uh, my room. Let me know when you think we need to go over it again.”

The two nodded, already moving about to go on with their day, while Patton rushed to his room, eager to get there before any tears spilled over.

Patton barely made it to his room before his tears started to fall, and he closed his door as quick as he could without slamming it before retreating to his bed. He looked around at everything Thomas had collected throughout his life that held significant meaning to the both of them and took his glasses off, fully prepared for a long session of getting rid of his negative emotions away from everyone else. They couldn’t be held back or pushed away, not this time, so Patton would just have to grit his teeth and ride the tidal wave of emotions wherever it took him.

Even if the truce had ended with all three people signing the paper, Patton still felt like it had been a failure. The others’ argument earlier, that had been because of  _him_. It was because  _he_  couldn’t smooth things over like he was supposed to. He was supposed to have the right answer, the moral highroad, and he couldn’t find it. He had to lie to them about fronting times. He had to keep Virgil away to stave off another argument. He had done everything right but he couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling of wrong that was sweeping him off his feet.

In an ideal world, they all could get along, maybe with an occasional argument but it could always be fixed. This wasn’t an ideal world, far from it. But why couldn’t Patton work to make it closer to one anymore? Isn’t that what he used to do? Work hard to make the world a better place because he was in it and he decided he wouldn’t stand by as bad things happened? That didn’t appear to be the case anymore.

“Why couldn’t you stop them, Pat? Why couldn’t you do it and just make sure that the fighting stopped without having to lie to them? Why couldn’t you keep them from fighting in the first place? Why did you have to shove Virgil away? What if he never speaks to you again? This is  _your_ fault, Pat,  _your_  mess! You have to clean it up!” he exclaimed.

But Patton didn’t have the slightest clue how to do that. How could he, when the other two still wouldn’t speak to each other if it wasn’t necessary and there wasn’t an intermediary ready at all times?

Patton wanted to cofront, because then maybe at least he could let some of his sadness and frustration out in a way that felt real. But that would make Thomas sad and frustrated too, which was the last thing Patton wanted.

The tears started to fall faster and faster and Patton’s breath grew raspy. He wished he could make it silent, because even quiet sounded too loud and he was worried one of the others might hear and jump to conclusions that something had happened. He looked around and found an old radio, putting in a random CD and playing it just loud enough you could hear the beat outside the room if you strained to listen. That would cover up his crying sounds, at least. He didn’t have any way to cover the red-rimmed eyes or the runny nose, or the tear tracks down his cheeks.

But he didn’t have to worry about that in his room. All he had to worry about was the bad parts of the truce, the things he did wrong and needed to do better in order to prove himself worthy of being a headmate for the others. He  _had_  to be at one-hundred percent, didn’t he? For Thomas’ sake? He needed to be happy for Thomas. He could do that.

Most days, anyway. And when he couldn’t, Patton came in here and cried and threw pillows and hoped that Virgil wouldn’t make Thomas to scared of anything while he was out of commission.

Why did it have to be today, though? He thought he did well, at first. But the yelling, the shouting, the hatred between Logan and Roman and the accusations that each was harming Thomas and the other was better for him,  _that_  was all Patton’s mind could focus on. Suck up the bad like a sponge, so the others didn’t have to feel it while cofronting with Thomas, and Thomas wouldn’t deal with undue stress and anger. But the sponge had to be put through the wringer every now and again in order to soak up more of the bad later.

Patton’s breath was heaving in his chest now and he fell sideways on his bed, curling into a ball. He was a failure at keeping the peace in the Mind Palace, he was a failure at keeping himself and therefore everyone else happy at all times, he was just a failure all around today and he couldn’t stand it. Why was it that when Roman and Logan both decided to become Type A personalities Virgil and Patton were always caught in the cross-fire? Patton and Virgil almost never argued, and while Virgil argued with Roman and Logan, it was never as heated as what happened today.

Finding that something interesting to focus on, Patton’s cries trailed off into sniffles. He wondered if there was anything to that, or if it was just because Logan and Roman had more pride than Patton and Virgil did.

Still feeling bad, though a little bit better, Patton maneuvered until he was lying on his back on his bed, and looked at the truce still in his hand. Somehow he had to get the three of them to sit down again and bring Virgil into the equation as well. But Patton doubted that after today Virgil would want anything to do with them. It…couldn’t hurt to try, though, could it? When Patton was feeling better he’d bring Logan and Roman together and talk through what he needed from them when it came to Virgil, and then approach Virgil himself about the truce. That was conceivable, that was doable. That was a plan to fix this mess.

Patton, feeling slightly better now that he had a plan, put the truce safe on his desk before exhaustion from his crying made him fall sound asleep on his bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Logan thought it might be easier to live in the Mind Palace once the truce was signed. He wasn’t expecting overnight change, of course, but he expected that the tension in the air would be lighter and that there would be less in-fighting on general principle.

He supposed he was right on the in-fighting point, if only because everyone seemed to be refusing to talk to each other.

It was most apparent in the common room, where Logan was sitting and musing over the facts of the situation. While he might share the space periodically, Patton coming in to head to the kitchen or to wherever he went to influence Thomas or cofront every once in a while, or Roman sitting on the other side of the room reading the script from a play, no one acknowledged that anyone else was there.

It was mildly unsettling to walk around the Mind Palace and have everyone look away so as to not make eye contact with you, though Logan supposed he was guilty of doing this as well. He didn’t want to spur on an argument so soon after the truce, so he was sitting here and thinking, pretending to read a book abandoned in his lap.

A bird twittered outside the Mind Palace and Logan looked towards the windows in the room. That was the most noise he had heard outside his head for the past…what? Hour? Two? Why? Why hadn’t he heard anything? And why was he so worried?

That last question unsettled him the most. He was the logical personality, he wasn’t supposed to have feelings. He was supposed to be able to analyze things completely rationally and come to rational conclusions. He wasn’t supposed to get worried. And yet here he was. Sitting on the couch, a book abandoned in his lap, a bird twittering outside, and his stomach twisting itself into knots.

He stood. This was ridiculous. “Patton?” he called. He could have sworn he had just seen the moral personality walk by. “Patton!”

Patton poked his head into the common room. “Yeah, Logan? What’s up?”

Logan frowned in consternation. What was he supposed to say? “Is everything all right? It feels…quiet.”

Patton fully stepped into the common room. “I didn’t notice anything wrong when I was cofronting,” he said. “So I don’t think there’s some sort of secret emergency. Roman is off exploring, or else he’s helping Thomas with his lines, one of the two. Virgil is…somewhere. I don’t know. He doesn’t make a lot of noise to begin with, though.”

Logan hummed. “It’s still…off, though, is it not? Something in the air feels…different.”

“Has to be a weird side effect the truce,” Patton laughed, eyes darting around as he scratched the back of his neck.

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Logan snapped. “What’s wrong?”

Patton swallowed. “What’s…?”

“What’s wrong,” Logan repeated, patience wearing thin.

Patton looked around guiltily. “I think it’s Virgil, to be honest,” he admitted quietly. “He’s upset about something, maybe the truce? Except I’m not sure how he’d know about it already, because I wasn’t planning to tell him until he needed to be a part of it and I got the arguments between you and Roman out of the way…Wait! I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just the two of you often don’t see eye-to-eye and I didn’t want everyone trying to talk over each other at once and–”

Logan held up a hand and Patton shut up, red in the face and the ears. “I don’t take offense to that,” Logan said. “I know Roman and I often have different views on Thomas’ well being, and the correctness of those sentiments is not something to be debated at the moment. I told Virgil about the truce the day you brought it up to me.” Patton squeaked but Logan spoke over him before anything Patton could have to say saw the outside of his mouth. “I thought you would have spoken to him about it sooner or later and didn’t realize he wasn’t going to know about the first part of the truce until it was over. That was my fault, and I take full responsibility. But I don’t think that explains everything. No one really wants to talk to each other. No one is looking anyone else in the eye when they get approached. It’s like everyone is on…”

“Unstable ground?” Patton supplied. “You’re not the only one feeling it. It’s weird. I thought the truce would mean less arguing, but it feels like the arguments are still going on even though they’re not happening verbally.”

“It’s the thought of them happening again, perhaps?” Logan mused. “No one wants to start an argument and therefore they feel like they can’t start a conversation?”

Patton shrugged helplessly, his eyes showing hidden guilt. “This is all my fault…but I might know how to fix it.”

Logan looked at him with interest. “How? This atmosphere is unsettling, to say the least. I can only imagine how much more amplified it would be for someone who feels emotion.”

“What would happen if we worked on the second half of the truce, do you think? Bringing in Virgil and finalizing the last piece of the puzzle might help. Then Virgil might be sulking less, at least.”

Logan had to admit that Patton’s idea had merit. Virgil could influence Thomas, so it made sense he could also influence Patton or Logan or even Roman if he tried. They might just be dealing with emotions seeping from one personality to the next, and if that were the case, it could easily be remedied by bringing Virgil into the metaphorical fold. “How do you propose we do that?” he asked.

“We–you’re helping?” Patton asked, shocked.

“Well of course. If Virgil agreeing to the truce helps us all operate at maximum capacity I have an innate duty to help him sign it. How do you propose we do this?”

“Well we need everyone to sit down together in order to make it clear what we’re going to need to adjust in the truce, if anything,” Patton said. “And there might need to be adjustments, especially if the fronting turns are off.”

Logan nodded. That made logical sense. “How do you suppose we get Virgil to agree to this? If he is upset over the truce he may not want anything to do with it.”

Patton deflated some. “Oh, dear. I didn’t think of that…Well, I guess I did a little bit, but I was hoping that wasn’t a real possibility we had to think through…”

“Patton,” Logan said, drawing the personality away from his introspection. “In the here and now, please. We need to find a plan.”

“Right,” Patton agreed. “Everything goes better with a plan, especially a foolproof one, but even a regular plan would work here, I think, with enough trying.”

“We will see if that’s the case once we come up with something,” Logan agreed. “Now, how to approach Virgil about the truce?”

“Well, now that I know he knows, we can skip the explaining part unless he has the wrong idea about what it is, right?” Patton asked. “That’s not exactly a plan but it’s an example of what not to do which could lead us to what we need to actually do.”

Logan nodded. “Agreed. I assume a straight-forward approach would be of use. Confirming he knows about what the truce is and then requesting he become a part of it. How hard would that be?”

“But what if he says no?” Patton asked. “Because not everyone sees the world the way you do, Logan. He might not be logically weighing the benefits of this and just be upset that we didn’t ask him to join us in the first place.”

“But that’s completely irrational,” Logan said, brows furrowing. “Even when I feel unsettled I approach that feeling with logic to find the source of the issue and fix it.” He wasn’t going to bring up the times he got unreasonably angry for no good reason and started following his anger rather than logic. That ended in yelling and exhaustion and emotions that Logan would rather not dig up.

“I know that, and you know that, and the way you handle things is great, but just because you handle things that way doesn’t mean that Virgil does it the same, you know? He might be more left-brain oriented but he still bases a lot of what he does in emotion.”

“He does?” Logan asked. This was news. He knew Virgil heightened Thomas’ anxiety but he thought it was from over analyzing literally everything he could rather than some sort of…gross feeling emotion.

“Yeah, he operates based on fear, didn’t you know?” Patton asked, looking confused beyond belief.

Fear? Virgil operated based on fear? Logan had always assumed that Virgil caused fear from over analyzing, not that his over analyzing was caused by fear. How well did he really know Virgil if he didn’t understand that? He felt like he had betrayed his ally in some way, but…that was ridiculous. Virgil never showed any desire to get close to any of them, so why would Logan make that effort instead?

_Because you’re the one who likes to learn new things,_  his mind helpfully supplied.  _Just not when it comes to people you might start to care about, huh, Logan?_

He growled internally for that thought process to shut up. He didn’t need any internal self-loathing to start up based on nothing but emotions, which were baseless on principle. When the thoughts wouldn’t go away on their own, he forcibly squashed them down and sought to change the subject of his and Patton’s conversation. “So if he does say no I can bring up logical benefits and you can come up with…emotional ones. I’m sure that will get through to him.”

Patton looked uncertain but nodded anyway. “It couldn’t hurt,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s try it now.”

Together they walked to Virgil’s room, and together they stopped at the closed door. Logan stood right alongside Patton, uncertain as he watched the other personality retie his sweater around his neck. “You ready?” Patton asked.

“Of course I’m ready,” Logan lied. “Are  _you_  ready?”“

Patton let out a breath of air and nodded. "Yeah,” he said, voice wavering. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Liar,” Logan muttered under his breath as he knocked on Virgil’s door.

Virgil roughly opened the door just wide enough Logan could see one of his eyes. “What,” he said flatly.

“Virgil, we have a proposition for you–”

“No, Logan, I don’t want to be part of your stupid truce,” Virgil spat. “Not if you’re not going to include me from the start.”

“Virgil, that was my fault, and I’m sorry,” Patton said, putting a hand on Virgil’s door to keep him from slamming it. “But I made sure to reserve time for you in the first part of the truce, and you can even have equal time to the others if it means you’ll join.”

What? Logan’s head whipped around to Patton. “Patton, you’d be sacrificing your time at front entirely were Virgil to–”

“I know,” Patton said softly, though his resolve was firm. Logan wasn’t going to get any more out of him, though, because he moved to address Virgil. “But we need you in this truce, Virgil, the whole Mind Palace is off with you not in on it. Heck, the whole  _Inner World_  is off with you not in on it!”

“Not my problem, I’m used to everything feeling off,” Virgil said. “Go away.”

“Virgil! Just hear us out!” Patton ordered.

Logan froze. Virgil froze. It felt like the entire Earth stopped turning. Patton never ordered anything from anyone. But Patton’s eyes held sternness Logan had never seen, as well as a fierce determination. His chest was rising and falling drastically, but it was in a decidedly steady rhythm. If Logan didn’t know any better, he would say that Patton was angry. But Patton was never angry; Patton never experienced any negative emotion to the best of Logan’s memory, which was pretty impressive. There was so much he apparently didn’t know about the system, it made him wonder just what else he was missing when it came to knowledge of the others?

Virgil opened his door all the way and leaned against the door frame. “Okay, Patton, you have my attention. Why should I join your little clique when you obviously didn’t want me there at first?”

“It’s not a clique,” Patton said. “It’s an agreement that we’re not going to fight over who fronts when. And the only reason I didn’t have you there in the first place was because I didn’t think I could handle a three-way argument. I didn’t mean to leave you out or make you feel excluded, and I’m sorry that I did. But I saved some time for you in the original truce, and if you agree to be there for any revisions that are necessary, we can make sure that everybody is even, no one has to deal with getting the short end of the stick. I just needed Logan and Roman to come to a vague agreement on how they weren’t going to fight first, because…well, no offense, Logan, but you and Roman cause the biggest problems.”

“None taken,” Logan said. “I am well aware that the magnitude of the fights between me and Roman are greater than fights between Virgil and me, or even Virgil and Roman.” Internally that made him start to wonder, though. Why were Patton and Virgil sharing things that Logan was not privy to? What caused them to have this sort of inside knowledge? Because this seemed vaguely like an inside joke without a punch line.

“This was nothing against you, Virgil, you know that, right?” Patton asked.

Virgil shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. You keep on insisting that it’s not, so I guess there’s something to what you’re saying.”

Patton’s mouth twisted sideways and Logan internally agreed with that expression. There was no way that Virgil bought what they were saying if he was speaking like that. It just wasn’t an option. “Is there anything we can do to prove to you that we want you around, and we want your help?” Logan asked. Maybe emotions weren’t going to change right away, like they sometimes irrationally did. But if he could change them with logic…

Virgil shrugged. “Not really, nerd. Just leave me alone and we’ll call it even.”

Logan opened his mouth to say something else but Patton beat him to the punch. “We know you want to help Thomas, Virgil, and we really think that this is going to help him. What else would work besides a truce?”

“Actually getting along,” Virgil said, before slamming the door closed so hard Patton’s hand was actually forced off as it rattled in its frame.

“Well, that…was not an optimal outcome,” Logan said, crossing his arms.

“Maybe, but I think Virgil might have given us a way to prove ourselves,” Patton said.

Logan furrowed his brows. When it came to the intuitive leaps Patton made through emotion, he was completely lost. “How?”

“By being nice to him! Getting along with him, you know?” Patton explained.

“No, I don’t know,” Logan said, crossing his arms. He might have looked petulant if it weren’t for the blatant confusion in his tone.

“Oh, boy, I forgot you weren’t one of the ones who socialized well when Thomas was a kid,” Patton muttered. “Look, getting along with Virgil generally involves doing what he wants to do, giving him a turn picking a movie, making dinner that he might like, things like that. You don’t have to become his servant or whatever, and you’re still allowed to do stuff  _you_  want to do, but you take him into account as well.”

“Why didn’t you just say that it was a compromise on social expectations and actions?” Logan asked. “I have done those before, especially when I find we are both trying to influence Thomas.”

“Really?” Patton asked skeptically.

“Of course,” Logan said. “Why do you think I would let Thomas take breaks in his thirst for knowledge when he was younger, or give him a week to just play outside with his friends once his homework was done?”

“I…guess I never really considered that something you had a hand in,” Patton said, looking to the ground. “Huh. That’s interesting. Sorry. Why do you never do that with Roman?”

Logan was once again confused. “What do you mean? Of course I’ve compromised with Roman.”

“How?” Patton challenged.

“All the times Thomas studied theater and read up on plays, whether or not they were ones he was in? Learning the intricacies of lights and sound on stage was fascinating when Roman wanted to discuss the play he was doing with some of the tech kids in high school. It’s all really interesting when you can learn something in addition to just memorizing lines–”

Patton held up a hand, deep in thought. “That’s…not what I was expecting,” he said.

“What were you expecting?” Logan asked. “Not being able to come up with any times at all?”

“Well…kind of, yeah. I never saw you two as some sort of unit who would work together on that sort of thing.”

“Sure, we separated more as Thomas grew older, but Roman and I used to get along quite well, remember? I would learn new things in class with Thomas and Roman could help act out testing those things, or putting them to use in stories. Back in the day we were quite a formidable force,” the smile on Logan’s face as he recalled these events slowly faded. “Some days I wish I knew what happened to split our views on what was best for Thomas. But we may never know. If Roman does, he’s certainly not sharing.”

Patton frowned. “I…need to think on that. Maybe I could figure it out.”

Logan shrugged. “We don’t have to. The truce means we don’t have to get along, but we don’t fight, and that’s all we really need in order to function correctly. At least, it should be, provided we can get Virgil on our side.”

“But…but if I could figure it out, would you try and fix things with Roman?”

“What is there to fix?” Logan asked. “It’s just a fact of life, Patton. Roman and I no longer get along, this is just something that we all have to come to terms with. It’s better than all of us hating each other and not speaking to anyone else, isn’t it?”

“I…I guess…” Patton said, looking extremely uncertain and possibly uncomfortable at the implication that two people not liking each other was something that would be okay.

“Patton.” Logan took a deep breath, not wanting to burst the personality’s bubble but feeling an obligation to educate him. “Not everyone can be friends, and this is fine. If everyone could be friends right off the bat, then there wouldn’t be nearly as many interesting things in the world. Conflict occurs, but it brings better things because of it. For instance, both Roman and I are more passionate about our pursuits because of each other. You became an excellent mediator, despite often being led by your heart rather than your head. Virgil…well, Virgil has survived despite running more or less on fear for twenty-three years. Had we been different we might have gotten along better, but this isn’t anything we can change with the wave of a wand and a magic spell. Even if we could magically change things so that everyone got along and never fought, ever, I wouldn’t, because there are benefits to this, even though they might not be obvious at first glance. You don’t have to fix everything, okay? Some things? Just can’t be fixed.”

“But…?” Patton asked, voice wavering. “But…but…”

“Patton, it’s okay,” Logan said, putting his hands on Patton’s shoulders. “You have done all you could for now, and we will work on, ahem, ‘getting along’ with Virgil. Don’t worry, okay? We will make this work.”

Patton bit his lip but nodded, and walked off, posture slightly slouched in defeat. Logan shook his head. There was so much about this system he needed to learn about. Perhaps at some point, he could ask Virgil about it, he seemed to be around for as long as Logan could remember, and he had referenced helping Logan form at one point, so he could be a valuable resource…but for now, he had work to do.


	7. Chapter 7

“It’s  _not fair_! How can they just…just come to my room like that and claim that not including me in their little clique isn’t personal?! I…I…argh!!!”

Virgil was pacing around his room, running his fingers through his hair, voice going from barely a mutter to just below a shout and back again, pulsing like waves between tides.

“They can’t do that. They can’t, they can’t, they can’t!” Virgil repeated over and over and over. “Oh, I can here them now, ‘We were merely sharing our reasoning!’ That stupid, arrogant smile Logan gets…it makes me want to punch him in the teeth! And Patton! I never thought I’d see the day where Patton betrayed me, but he seems to be doing a pretty  _bang up job of it_!”

Virgil stopped in his pacing, arms falling to his sides. As angry as he was that he wasn’t included at first and now they were doing it reluctantly, much like a child inviting the least-liked person in class to their birthday party out of pity, he was still working on crushing the part of him that actually wanted to join. After everything, he still wanted to be included, he wanted someone to care about him. Because sure, Thomas cared, but it wasn’t like he was walking around the Inner World every day, able to walk by him in the hall and just smile and nod.

Why did Virgil want to be included so much? All Logan and Roman had done was hurt him. They saw what he was capable of doing to Thomas, and decided from a few select moments he was nothing but harmful, and they’d keep him as far from front-and Thomas-as much as possible. And that, more than anything, was painful. Because they were keeping him from the one person who cared, the one person who saw him for who he was; a survival instinct, one that could be useful when treated with care.

Patton had never been as bad. Patton was heavily based in emotions as well, so Virgil supposed that Patton “got it” a little more than the others did. Didn’t change facts, didn’t make it any easier. One person who semi-supported you but still didn’t understand you and didn’t front often enough with Thomas to make him influence the others to change their mind. Yeah, that was so helpful.

Virgil couldn’t keep knocking Patton though. The guy always meant well. He just didn’t know what that meant when it came to Virgil. Heck, half the time  _Virgil_  didn’t know what that meant when it came to himself. It was just one of those things Virgil understood in abstract, but reality wasn’t abstract, and as such it didn’t feel real like it should.

Virgil sank onto his bed. Shouldn’t he feel grateful that Patton was trying to include him at all? He was surprised that Roman or Logan hadn’t just flat out said no and didn’t allow him in on the truce period, and further more, they left space for him! Granted, they probably expected Patton to take up most of that time, but Patton had said he was willing to give all of that up if it would make Virgil happy. And Virgil…didn’t know how to respond to that. That was an act of kindness he had never encountered before. He couldn’t really fathom the possibilities that would lead to. But, then again, the others probably wouldn’t allow him in front if they knew it was his turn. They might let Patton in and then Patton might pass control onto him, but once they caught wind of it even a plan as small as that would die. Virgil really,  _really_  wished there were a simple solution to this.

Okay. Stop. Too much thinking. Take a breath. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, that worked for the most part, didn’t it? In, out. In, out. It’s okay, just focus on breathing until you can move to other topics.

Patton. Patton was a somewhat easy topic that pertained to his train of thought. Patton was nice. He liked cats even though he was allergic, and he enjoyed cookies more than most people probably should. Come to think of it, Patton resembled a system little pretty closely. The only thing that set him apart was that of course, he was the same age as all the others. And, well, that sort of blew that theory out of the water.

Virgil snorted. Yeah, he could still see Patton as a kid in his mind’s eye, running here and there and everywhere and watching Thomas front via the TV in the living room, and randomly yell what was the right or wrong thing to do. That was how he would get Thomas to listen back then. Now he had more subtle ways of helping Thomas. He’d still watch when Thomas was fronting, but Patton was more likely to send out emotions pertaining to what Thomas was doing, or gently text a reminder to Thomas using a phone he had in headspace when he wanted to speak, rather than just shouting and announcing to everyone what had transpired. That would probably send Roman and Logan rushing into the room. Hm.

Logan. Not a bad kid, inherently, if a little big for his britches sometimes. Logan used to get along with Roman a lot. Virgil frowned. He remembered exactly when Logan and Roman had stopped talking to each other for a solid week and after that only spoken when strictly necessary. Thomas had been asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. Roman exclaimed that Thomas should act, at the same time that Logan said he should aspire to be a professor. The two had looked at each other, shocked and betrayed at the other’s answer, and they had promptly launched into their first heated and brutal argument with each other about who was right and why. Virgil and Patton had only looked on in horror as the two got physical. Virgil wouldn’t be surprised if Patton had simply blocked the day from his memory, but Virgil remembered. He remembered because if everything ever got that bad again, it would be his job to make sure he didn’t send Thomas into a panic, and that neither of them would hurt Thomas if they attempted to assert themselves by cofronting. If Thomas got hurt…Virgil didn’t even want to entertain that idea.

Finally, Virgil thought about Roman. He shuddered, not out of any real dislike for the guy himself, but rather the way he saw Virgil and treated him as a result. Virgil didn’t really know what he did to first spur on Roman’s dislike, but he knew that eventually, when it became clear that Virgil would often make Thomas anxious or afraid, the others’ general reaction was, “That’s it, you’re harmful now, go pack your things and leave the island, you’re gone.” Virgil hated that attitude, but understood. The first time he saw Logan and Roman fight, Virgil wanted to kick them both out then and there. Thomas could function without them. Maybe not in the same way, but it would be functioning, and the short-term benefits seemed to outweigh the long-term consequences.

Only problem? The long-term consequences always outweighed the short-term benefits, full stop. No short-term benefit could outweigh years of Thomas not getting creative, not getting excited with a new idea, not imagining and working towards making those imaginations a reality. No short-term benefit could outweigh years of Thomas’ fantastic problem-solving skills, his planning towards making everything he wanted possible, and his thirst for knowledge that never truly would go away. Those things were possible because Roman and Logan personified the intensity of those feelings within Thomas.

Virgil and Thomas had done research into systems before, and while they thought in theory they could be full multiple, it was also possible that they could very well be median. Everyone was dependent on Thomas being there, and Thomas seemed to have bits and pieces of everyone in him. They were exaggerated traits. Which of course meant Thomas was an exaggerated trait himself, of his social side and the side that mostly saw the light of day. But considering that gave both Thomas and Virgil an existential crisis about who was who and was anyone  _really_ Thomas, they mostly stuck to being content about not knowing exactly down to the last detail who they were, and just knowing that they were separate but co-dependent.

Logan and Roman would hate that notion if it ever came up, claiming that Virgil was just making things up in order to try and get them to cooperate with one another, but it was true. Logan probably wouldn’t exist well without Roman’s dreams to work towards, and Roman wouldn’t work well towards his dreams without Logan’s plans. Patton kept them both excited about the whole thing, and Virgil made sure they didn’t do anything extremely stupid in the heat of the moment. All in all, it was a very symbiotic relationship, however unwillingly, all to help Thomas. If that wasn’t median, then Virgil wasn’t sure entirely what it was.

Okay, thinking about stuff that had the potential for causing a crisis. Breathe in and out. Four, seven, eight. Yeah. He could keep calm, not that the others ever admitted that. No, it was much easier to be the villain when someone was claiming to be bad all the time, unapologetically. But Virgil wouldn’t apologize for trying to keep them safe. He might admit that he could go a bit overboard, but he would never outright apologize for being himself. He wouldn’t want to apologize for being himself in the first place if he didn’t acknowledge that it did get everyone in trouble sometimes.

Virgil looked around. He glanced to his desk and saw the old binder that was falling apart at the seams, filled with loose-leaf paper. He smiled. He grabbed a new sheet, wrote down a short letter, detailing what was going on and how he felt about it, and, feeling significantly better about himself afterwards, opened the binder to the back, opened the rings with a snap, put it in the back of the binder behind all the letters like it, and pushed the rings shut again, closing the binder. Feeling like his emotions were somewhat under control again now that the worst of them were on paper and not in his head, Virgil stood and left his room in search of something to do. Even if he weren’t part of the truce, he couldn’t hole up in his room every day, he would just get bored.

When Virgil got as far as the common room before doing a double-take, he mentally called the fact a success. As it was, it looked a little odd to see a myriad of board games spread out on the floor of the common room, a folding table and chairs in the center of the room, Roman, Patton, and Logan sitting in a half-circle around the table. Patton saw him and waved him over. “Virgil! Do you wanna come play? We’re having a game night!”

“Game…night?” Virgil asked, frowning. “Why?”

“Well, we were thinking about it, and it seemed like we all wanted to do something tonight to stay occupied while Thomas watches a movie, and we had nothing better to do and thought it might be fun! Do you want to be the fourth? I’ll even let you choose the first game!” Patton exclaimed.

Ah, so they were trying to help him feel included. He wanted to tell them they could stick it, that he wasn’t interested, but something inside him told him not to. Maybe it was the small part of him that wanted to be part of the group, maybe it was simple curiosity, who knows, but Virgil was inclined to listen to it, being in a good mood. “Okay, sure, why not?” Virgil asked, sitting down at the only open space on the card table.

Patton cheered and Logan offered a pained smile, while Roman didn’t even try to pretend he was pleased. He wasn’t actively displeased, though, so Virgil would count that as another success.

“What do you want to play first?” Patton asked.

Virgil looked at the games around them and frowned. He could identify some of Patton’s choices right off the bat.  _Chutes and Ladders_ ,  _Candy Land_ , and  _Uncle Wiggly_  all caught his eye immediately with the bright colors that no doubt Patton remembered fondly from their childhood. He could also spy some of Logan’s choices:  _Trivial Pursuit_ ,  _Scrabble_ ,  _Up Words_ , all of those seemed pretty obvious choices for the logical personality to enjoy. Roman’s choices seemed to lean more to the classics:  _Monopoly_ ,  _Sorry_ ,  _Trouble_ , and the like were also sitting around. Virgil saw one that he liked and was pleasantly surprised that it was placed on top of a stack, no doubt on purpose. “Anyone feel like playing a round or two of  _Taboo_?”

Logan wrinkled his nose while Roman laughed. “Sure, Virgil, that sounds like a great idea! I don’t think we could play teams but we can see how many we can get in a certain amount of time, sound good guys?” Patton said.

Roman nodded. “Yes, I believe it will be fairly easy to win at this game! I can come up with very creative ways of expressing the word that needs to be guessed, this will no doubt be a cinch!”

“I fail to understand the appeal of the game, considering that it follows no logical sequence and takes out the most common words to describe something, making you have to think in illogical patterns, but if you are interested in it, Virgil, I suppose we could try it.”

“Wow, nerd, you really are trying to play nice,” Virgil laughed. He opened the box and took out the cards, looking around at everyone. “Who wants to guess first?”

“Oh! Oh! I’ll go first!” Patton exclaimed. “I can do it!”

Virgil nodded. “Close your eyes, then, so I can show the others the card.”

Patton nodded and closed his eyes, covering them with his hands. Virgil pulled out the card and almost laughed at the irony, because the card was  _ADULTHOOD_. He put it on the table and the other two groaned. Underneath the word  _ADULTHOOD_  were also the words  _GROWING UP_ ,  _PARENTING_ ,  _ADOLESCENCE_ ,  _CHILDHOOD_ , and  _COMING OF AGE_.

“Let’s do this,” Virgil said, pulling out the timer and starting it.

“Okay, um, this involves…” Logan floundered.

“This is the final stage of one’s life!” Roman said confidently.

The response Patton gave had Virgil giggling uncontrollably on the inside and he barely concealed his smile. “Oh! Adultery!”

“That’s not–!” Logan exclaimed, clenching his hands. “Patton, that’s not the word for it.”

Patton frowned. “What do you mean? Of course it is!”

“No it’s not!” Logan said. “What other words  _like_  that one do you know?”

“Um…I don’t know? Growing up, I guess?”

“Keep trying,” Virgil said, almost shaking at the force of keeping back his laughter.

“Am I getting closer?” Patton asked hopefully.

“Sure, you could say that, you’ve gotten on the forbidden words list, at least,” Virgil said amused.

Patton’s face lit up with a smile. “Oh! I did! That’s good, right?! Um, if it’s not adultery, and it’s not growing up…um, is it just adult in general? Coming of age? Being a man, woman, grown person? Um…I don’t know! Can I just look?”

“No!” Roman and Logan exclaimed at the same time. “That defeats the purpose of the game!” Logan protested.

Patton pouted. “I don’t know what it is, though, and I really, really want to!”

Virgil was about to add his own two cents when the timer dinged and Virgil tutted. “Out of time already,” he mused. “That was fast.”

Patton’s hands flew from his face and he peered down at the card. “A-dult-hood? Isn’t that a bad word?”

“Why would it be a bad word?” Virgil asked, getting an idea of why but wanting to hear it from the horses’ mouth.

“That’s…that’s cheating when you’re married, isn’t it?” Patton asked, one hand flying to his mouth.

Virgil couldn’t hide it anymore, he chuckled and shook his head, a smirk on his face. He ruffled Patton’s hair, despite the personality staring at him in shock. “No Patton, I think you got those two swapped.”

“I…do…?” Patton asked. He gasped in realization. “But…but that means that I’ve been telling Thomas the wrong word all these years! What happens if he uses it when he’s not supposed to?”

Virgil smirked. “Believe me, I think he knows what the right word is. Logan’s a living dictionary, almost, I’m sure he taught Thomas the difference before he said anything bad.”

Patton visibly relaxed. “Oh, okay. Thanks Logan!”

Logan just nodded. Virgil picked up another card. “All right, who’s the next victim?”

They played a couple rounds of  _Taboo_  before Roman started to complain that no one was guessing his brilliant clues, which in Virgil’s mind were about average as far as the game went, not that he told the youngest personality that.

“What should we play instead, then?” Virgil asked. “I got to choose first so I don’t think it’s fair I do it again so soon. Logan, is there anything you want to play?”

Logan blinked at Virgil, and Virgil was afraid that he had broken the logical personality after about ten seconds of no response. But then Logan slowly asked, “You…want me? To choose? Why?”

Virgil shrugged. “If Patton chooses we’ll be playing a kiddy game, if Roman chooses we might be stuck with  _Pictionary_. Do you  _really_  want to play either of those, at all?”

“No, I suppose not,” Logan said with a small smirk. “How about we play  _Trivial Pursuit_? There are several additions which could prove to be interesting, I know in fact that there’s a  _Harry Potter_  one…”

Patton gasped. “I love  _Harry Potter_!” he exclaimed.

“As do I,” Roman said with a pleased smile.

“Should we play that, then?” Virgil asked.

After getting three affirmatives, Logan stood in search of the box for the game. “It’s here somewhere…” he muttered. “Aha!”

He pulled out the box and Patton cheered excitedly while Roman just rubbed his hands together in excitement. Virgil smiled when he was sure no one was watching him. This was how it should always be, all of them getting along and having fun, laughing. They were roommates in a sense, after all. Shouldn’t they be nice to one another?

The game flew by in Virgil’s mind. Though he was too busy watching the others to pay much mind to the game. Logan’s eyes lit up whenever he knew the answer to a question, and Roman wiggled excitedly in his seat whenever it was his turn. Patton was just beaming the whole time, and not one argument arose from the table. It reminded Virgil almost painfully of when they were children. He wished Thomas were here to see this, but he’d definitely be hearing about it the first chance Virgil got to share it.

When the game was finally over, Roman beating Patton by one question and Logan two pieces behind, Virgil coming in last with two pieces period, everyone was ready to call it a night. After all, Thomas had to get up early tomorrow, and someone needed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for it. Since that person wasn’t going to be Virgil, he took his time getting back to his room. He stacked all the games on the card table so no one would trip on them in the morning, and meandered back to his room, writing a second letter in one day (which was unusual for him) before deciding to head to bed.

As he fell asleep, thoughts swirled in his head. Some were about the past, some were about the future, but the most he had were about the present, and how nice it felt to not be at odds with everyone for once, and how sweet it felt to actually belong somewhere besides by Thomas’ side hidden away in his room.

Yeah. He could get used to this. Definitely.


	8. Chapter 8

Roman woke in the morning feeling somewhat well-rested for once but also…unhappy for some reason he couldn’t pin down right away. His mind drifted back to the previous night’s games and a smile reached his face before falling quickly. He was upset over game night? Why was he upset over game night, of all things?

_Because they was happy during it,_  his mind supplied.  _Because_  you  _were happy during it._

_That doesn’t make any sense,_  Roman thought to himself. Wanting to challenge the little voice in his head, he asked himself,  _How can you be so sure?_

_Nostalgia. Simple,_  the voice supplied.

It hit Roman like a ton of bricks. Of course he was upset over the nostalgia. He had always been one to look back fondly on the past. Everyone sitting around, laughing, having fun…that brought up memories that he really didn’t want to think about. Memories of when the whole group could get along, memories of laughing with Logan, of playing with Patton, of getting Virgil’s approving smiles when he helped calm both Virgil and Thomas down.

Those memories were the kinds that haunted him. The ones where they were all on the same side, no arguments, and everyone approved of him, of what he could do. Now he was the only one to understand he was helping Thomas. Closing your eyes and daydreaming for a minute or two to calm yourself down wasn’t unhealthy, in fact Roman could argue it was better than burying yourself in days’ worth of research to block out your feelings (looking at Logan, there). He was helpful! In some ways more than the others!

That sentiment made his heart hurt quickly. Just because he was more helpful…that made him sound more important. But he wasn’t, was he? He was just another person among five. There wasn’t anything particularly shocking about that, was there? He was just being a good friend to help Thomas calm down like that, or help him figure out what his dreams were. He didn’t get the right to act so self-entitled.

_…Oh._  Maybe he owed the others an apology. He wasn’t more important than they were, not by a long shot. They were all equally important, but he had been acting like he was better. He would argue to his grave about whether he or Logan was right about what was best for Thomas, but that disagreement didn’t mean that Logan was less important than Roman. No, Logan still had a time and place…just a different time and place than Roman. And that wasn’t too bad, was it?

First things first, though, he had to formulate an apology to the others for thinking that he was more important than them. How was he going to do that? Especially without coming off sounding like, “Sorry I insulted you, but I’m still more important than you because I know what’s best.” He still felt he knew best, because that’s what he did, he dreamt up the best path possible for Thomas and worked night and day to achieve it. But the others would help him in that, and he didn’t want to be put on a pedestal. Nor should he have done that himself.

Wow, he had screwed up.

Okay, maybe Patton first, Patton was easy. Roman could apologize for acting all high-and-mighty. He wanted to have things more like they were during game night: everyone happy and laughing, and because he knew Patton valued that as well, they could find common ground there. Patton would easily forgive him, he hoped, because that was what Patton did! He didn’t really need to worry there too much. Just swallow his pride a little and admit he was wrong.

Virgil, though…Virgil might be a little trickier. He didn’t know how he’d get Virgil to listen to him, because of the way he was treating the other. He was saying that Virgil was nothing but harmful to Thomas, definitely putting him down to make Roman feel better, more useful. Not easy to apologize for that in the slightest, and he’d have to do that over and over again. At least he knew how much of a jerk he was being. He may not know how much he’d have to ask for forgiveness, or even if he’d get it, but he had to try.

Logan…he didn’t know what he was going to do with Logan, simply because he still thought Logan was wrong on a lot of things. Yes, he needed to apologize, and he acknowledged that. But among that apology, lied another need: finding a common ground. And Roman couldn’t think of something that would work for that. Did Logan even miss the times they would work together? Was that a thing that he would relate to at all?

He didn’t know, and that’s what made this hard. He wanted to say sorry for being prideful, and putting himself above the others, but Logan did it too and he didn’t want to say anything about that in his apology though he knew that was something he was probably going to imply because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And he couldn’t just say he was wrong about everything: he still believed whole-heartedly Thomas should focus more on him than Logan, because Roman held Thomas’ dreams, he held  _both_  of their dreams. Logan…Roman wasn’t sure Logan even knew what the concept of a dream was.

Roman winced. Yeah. That…sounded crueler than he wanted it to. This was not going to be easy, not by a long shot. Maybe he should apologize to the other two first, and save Logan for last. Ask the others for help on how to convey that he wasn’t trying to be more important, just that he might be required more in fronting, and that front time did not equal importance. In fact, he rarely fronted outside daydreaming for a lot of the younger years in Thomas’ life. It didn’t make him any more or less important than Logan, who would do a majority of the fronting then, when Thomas was in class or doing homework.

How to do this, how to do this…ah, logic! Logan operated on logic, and Roman could work with that, couldn’t he? He worked on abstract logic all the time! Grabbing a pencil and a piece of scrap paper, he started scrawling notes. First he wrote down and underlined  _fronting time does not equal importance_  and worked from there. He wrote about how Logan and Roman had often butted heads over who needed to front more, about who was more important. He wrote down that shouldn’t have been an argument to take place, and that the true argument was who should front more, because they were both equally important.

Now the apology part. Roman wrote down he admitted he was wrong, and that he was acting like he was more entitled to front time with Thomas because he assumed he had a more important function in Thomas’ life, which simply wasn’t true.

Roman bit the inside of his cheek. This was a good start, he could probably work on the fly from there, the only problem being that Logan might assume Roman was trying to offer some more time at front, which wasn’t true. Roman enjoyed the amount of time he had at front now; it was important to him. Which might turn Logan wary of the apology. But Roman didn’t know how to fix that, and that frustrated him to no end!

Whatever, Roman could figure out how to fix this as he went along with his apologies. If Patton and Virgil asked the question about giving up front, Roman could explain his feeling to them and ask for advice. At that, he chuckled to himself. He was asking them for advice, something he hadn’t done in years. Already, this reminded him of when he was the youngest, the newest out of all of them and constantly questioning how things worked.

Ah, well. You know what? That wasn’t a bad thing, not in the slightest. Asking for help was not a sign of weakness. And having a creative block at one point did not mean he wasn’t useful for other things in that moment. And right now, he owed everyone an apology. He would consider giving them an apology breakfast of pancakes, except that Logan was the better cook…hang on. Logan was the better cook, but Roman helped him with plating and presentation! Or at least he did before they started biting each others’ heads off! He could ask Logan for help with this, and explain how he was thinking and feeling in the kitchen before Patton and Virgil got there! Yeah, that could function as a sort of apology on his part, asking for help, and then sealing it with the actual words “I’m sorry” would make it official!

Excited now, Roman stood up and got ready for the day. Dressing in his regular princely attire, and fixing his hair so it would stay just so, he looked himself over in his mirror once to make sure that he was looking okay, and then left the room, heading straight to Logan’s. He knocked three times, hoping that Logan hadn’t stayed up too late the night before and was sleeping in. It appeared not, because Logan opened the door right away, only to be vastly confused at seeing Roman. “Roman? What’s–”

“I was wondering if you could help me with breakfast this morning?” Roman asked. “No gimmicks, no tricks. I wanted to make an apology to everyone but I cannot make pancakes for the life of me. If you help me out with this I promise I will explain in more detail in a minute.”

Logan blinked, walking out of his room and closing the door. “…Okay. But you have a  _lot_  of explaining to do.”

Roman nodded. “That’s fine, that’s fine, so long as you help me with this.”

He hoped this worked out okay.

* * *

Logan kept sending Roman glances. Roman knew that this shouldn’t bother him, after all Logan was in the business of analyzing things. But Logan kept on doing it and  _not saying anything_  and it was making Roman feel  _examined._  “Something on your mind?” he asked Logan, unable to take the silence as Roman brought out everything they needed for pancakes.

“Yes…why are you doing this?” Logan asked, looking over at Roman and not even bothering to disguise his scrutiny.

“As an apology, I already told you,” Roman said. “I’ve been acting more like a…an ignorant waffle than I’d normally care to admit. And I want to make up for it.”

“An…‘ignorant waffle’?” Logan questioned. “How much have you been hanging around Patton?”

Roman chuckled. “Well, maybe a bit too much if I’m saying things like that, however my point remains. I have not been treating you and the others the way I should be, and I wish to make up for it.”

Logan hummed. “So…you’re making pancakes with my help?”

“Merely to get everyone in one room, yes,” Roman said with a shrug. “I wish for everyone to be here when I apologize so you all could hold me to what I’m promising.”

“And…what is it that you’re promising?” Logan asked, brows furrowing.

“To treat everyone with equal respect and importance,” Roman said. “What do we do first for this?”

“Pour in the dry ingredients, I’ll measure,” Logan said. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, thinking everything about last night through this morning made me realize I had been essentially putting myself on a pedestal, insisting I was more important than everyone else, and saying that I was the only one who should be fronting. I realize now that what I was saying was wrong. You and I may disagree on what’s best for Thomas, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less important in the process of surviving the day-to-day. I mean, even Virgil has importance by making Thomas wary of those who may wish to hurt him!”

Logan frowned as he poured all the dry ingredients into a bowl and handed Roman a spoon to help mix them together. “I see,” Logan said.

“Yes, and it’s come to my attention as well that fronting time does not equal importance,” Roman said. “You fronted more than I did when Thomas was in school, but did that make you more important? No, it just meant you helped Thomas more because you were better equipped with the task at hand. Same thing with how I front more frequently now, because I’m more adept at helping Thomas on stage. Not that you don’t help, but I assist a little more, you understand?”

Logan hummed. “I believe I do,” he said. “And while your wording is not the best, I understand the intent behind it is sincere, and as such can better understand what exactly you are trying to say.”

Roman smiled slightly. “I am sorry for the way I have treated you over the years, Logan. I cannot remember exactly why we don’t work together like we used to, and I understand we may never get that back, but that doesn’t mean we have to fight over everything just to see who’s better. You have your place and I have mine, and neither are better than the other, they’re just different. I simply forgot that for a while.”

Logan analyzed Roman for a long moment, and Roman shifted under the scrutiny. Had he said or done something wrong? But all Logan said was a small, “Apology accepted,” as he measured out water to add to the batter.

The pancake making was done more or less in silence for the rest of the time. Logan would tell Roman when to do something, or would ask for space to flip the pancakes in the pan when they got to that point, but Roman and Logan didn’t discuss anything further. It felt as if nothing else even needed to be said.

When the pancakes were all made and stacked on a plate, kept warm with a little bit of tin foil, Roman started plating them. It might seem a little “extra” or silly to the others, but Roman took pride in his work, and as such, made sure that even breakfast looked fit for a royal family. (His royal family.)

Patton’s pancakes were easy enough to decorate. Just stack two on top of each other, put some butter in the center, pour syrup on them, and then make a whipped cream smiley face. Patton loved it every time.

Virgil didn’t like his pancakes any specific way, so Roman always decided to get a little bit fancy with the way he decorated them. It was almost always in a mandala-esque pattern, because that’s just how Roman saw the circle and started thinking. He put blueberries evenly spaced near the center, strawberry halves farther out towards the edge, and a wave of whipped cream in between them to finish it off. Virgil didn’t much care for the stickiness of syrup.

Roman decorated Logan’s pancakes too, after a weak protest from Logan that he could do it himself. Roman made a kalaidoscope-esque geometric design out of fruits, but a little dab of butter in the middle, and poured syrup over it.

For himself, Roman spread bright blue Nutella over the pancakes and rolled them until they resembled burritos. No one ever said that a prince couldn’t play with his food, now did they?

The smell of food must have alerted Patton and Virgil that something was going on, as there was mumbling in the hallway and soon Patton was walking in wearing his cat onesie, while Virgil was still wearing his hoodie from yesterday and a pair of sweatpants. Neither of them seemed to be early risers today, but that was all right. It gave Roman some time to make his piece offering…with help from Logan. He certainly was not going to forget Logan’s help today, and with any luck would not forget any time soon after. “Ooh, pancakes!” Patton exclaimed, claiming the plate with the smiley-faced whipped cream. “It even has the smiley face!”

“Yes, Logan helped me make pancakes today, as a sort of peace offering, and a prelude to my apology,” Roman said.

“Apology?” Virgil said skeptically. “Apologizing for what, exactly?”

Roman cleared his throat. “I have been…less than civil with all of you for some time now, and I am not proud of my actions. In my haste to help Thomas achieve his dreams, I saw myself as the most important person out of all of us, and saw everyone who did not agree with me as obstacles. Now naturally, not everyone is going to agree that they’re worth less than someone else, as well they shouldn’t. So…I am sorry. Truly, truly sorry for my actions, and I hope you find it in yourselves to forgive me with time. Patton, I am sorry for causing so many distressing fights, and I hope to encourage a better environment like the one we had at game night last night all the time. Virgil, you and I have had our differences, but I should never have claimed you hurt Thomas. I don’t understand your methods, but that doesn’t mean that in the right environment they won’t work. I have been…an ignorant waffle,” Patton giggled at the term, and Roman smiled. “And I wish to make things better from here on out. So take these pancakes as a peace offering and a promise to make things better, please. Hold me accountable for my words as well. This will take time to undo, but I am willing to put in the effort.”

“Aw, Roman!” Patton exclaimed, putting down the plate and running over to hug him. “Of course I forgive you! And I’m so so so happy that you’re going to try and help get everything to a better place around here!”

“Thanks, I guess,” Virgil said with a shrug. “Still not sure I can trust you until the wounds heal some, but making the effort will probably help more than just saying sorry for the sake of it, so there’s always that.”

“Oh, wait wait wait!” Patton exclaimed, breaking out of his hug with Roman. “What about Logan?! Are you going to apologize to him, too?”

“Roman apologized to me this morning during the making of your pancakes,” Logan said, stepping in on Roman’s behalf. “I accepted his apology, and I suppose we are what you might call 'square’ now. If you’ll excuse me, I am going to take my pancakes to the common room and consider a few things over breakfast.”

As Logan left with his plate, Virgil came all the way into the kitchen and took his, too. “Nice design, Roman. I like strawberries more than blueberries anyway. How’d you know?”

“Call it an intuitive guess?” Roman offered. “Really I just saw strawberries as working better on the outside.”

Virgil made a 'huh’ noise. “You remembered I don’t like syrup, though, after all these years. That’s cool.”

And without another word, he too left. Which meant Patton and Roman were left alone in the kitchen, each with pancakes to eat. Roman conjured two stools and sat on one, gesturing for Patton to sit on the other. “If you want company,” Roman explained.

“I didn’t know you were going to apologize, Roman,” Patton said.

“Truth be told, I didn’t either until this morning,” Roman admitted. “And I didn’t even plan on apologizing to Logan first. We just…started making the pancakes as a peace offering and everything tumbled out.”

Patton laughed. “Kind of like when I get overwhelmed with lots of emotions!”

“Yeah, something like that,” Roman mused.

“What’s up?” Patton asked. “You still seem serious, and I rarely see you serious.”

“I don’t know. I’m just having one of those days made for introspection, I guess,” Roman shrugged off. He was more eager to eat his pancakes than talk about his feelings, but Patton necessitated some admitting of what he was thinking before he could be left to traverse lighter topics. “Why don’t you try the pancakes? It’s Logan’s old recipe.”

Patton took a bite and his eyes lit up, allowing them to switch to lighter topics, and Roman to catch a small break from all his emotions.


	9. Chapter 9

Logan chewed on his pancakes and his thoughts simultaneously while sitting in the Common Room. He had a lot to think about, after all, and not very much time to think about it before he may be required at front.

Roman apologized. Not only that, but Roman apologized to  _him_. Logan, the one person he was certain Roman despised with every fiber of his being. But not only was that not the case, it looked like Roman wanted to  _make up_  for his wrongs.

And that made Logan all too aware of his own wrongs against the other. When he had yelled at Roman about being an idiot, or useless, or just plain harmful to Thomas. How much of that did he honestly, truly believe? Not much. He had gotten so caught up in his own frustration that it bloomed into hatred, and Logan just watered the plant with every new argument.

Was that who he was destined to be? Some nasty person no one wanted to hang around, and the only visits he ever got were from Patton, making sure he was all right, or just trying to be nice and give him the illusion of being included?

And it hit Logan over the head, when he realized that had been going on for the past year, if not longer, and it had gone exactly as he had feared and reached levels he hoped it never would reach. He was no one’s friend in this head, he was simply someone everyone put up with. He didn’t want to live like that! He didn’t want to be the person everybody only tolerated, rather than actually enjoyed their company with! How had it come to this so quickly? And what could he do to fix it?

Well, obviously he had to apologize too. But doing it so soon after Roman, wouldn’t everybody think that was a cheap trick, a piggyback of sorts? Not if he played it carefully he didn’t think. He could do this, he was sure he could do this, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Virgil he could apologize to for calling a nuisance, and a set back , and, and…he didn’t know how many other things he had called the guy over the years, but he knew he had to apologize for all of it.

Patton, too. Patton had been so nice to him, even when Logan had gone off the deep end. He wasn’t sure if Patton even knew how much he kept Logan from holing up in his room, only leaving for food when he remembered basic needs. It wasn’t pretty. He would almost always be up to his eyeballs in research suppressing his feelings. And this was an unforeseen result of that. Patton allowed him an outlet every once in a while, one that he desperately needed no matter how much he hated it, and would never admit to.

Logan needed to apologize for his actions to Roman the most, though. Every argument over the years, all the venom and hatred and single minded determination to tear him down. When had he forgotten that Roman was a person too, with feelings and ambitions of his own? Did those ambitions really make sense to Logan? Not particularly, but it was still important to Roman and that was what mattered.

He had screwed up big time, and this was not good.

He bit his lip. How was he going to apologize? He didn’t do grand gestures, and he hated admitting that he was wrong. Perhaps it would seem more sincere face-to-face, but Logan never did well in those types of conditions. Maybe he could write a letter to each of them, explaining his wrongs and how he would try to make it up to them. It was something that was distinctly him, and something that no one could argue he was coerced into doing if he wrote like he normally did. From there, who knows? They might throw away his apology and act like he never did it, giving him the cold shoulder, but he doubted that was something that they would sincerely do. More likely the atmosphere would be awkward, filled with a certain amount of tension but not nearly as much as he had felt before, especially immediately after the truce.

Logan hummed in thought. This was something that required more thought that a simple musing over breakfast, and he really needed to get to work on how he was going to apologize as soon as possible.

His lips twitched up. In a way, he kind of felt like he was competing against Roman like when they were kids, always bouncing ideas off each other to see who could come up with the best thing to do that day, what scientist Thomas could pretend to be, or what cool new things they learned about reptiles they could add to the Dragon Witch, or anything, really. It was those days that made Logan smile when he looked back on them. Imagination and logic working together with ambition and planning. Somehow while the first two clashed awfully, the second half of their personalities meshed almost intrinsically. It was interesting to observe and ponder the exact meaning of what that said about their past, and their future if they decided to work together again.

Logan finished his breakfast quickly and briefly went to his room to retrieve a ream of notebook paper and a pencil. He settled down where he was having breakfast and began to write furiously, then stopped after about three sentences and stared at the paper, frowning. Was that really the wording he wanted? Did that convey his meaning clearly enough? Was he acting too high-and-mighty for his own good? He didn’t know, and that frustrated him the most. Why was writing something sincere so hard? Essays he could tackle, research papers were a cinch. But writing something from the heart? This felt too much like purple prose for his own good.

With a sigh, he read over the beginning of his apology and decided that he would continue writing, and if he found he needed to change the beginning later to match his thesis, he would. It wasn’t impossible to do on paper, though it may require rewriting the darn thing a few times until he got the beginning in a satisfactory manner.

He felt eyes on him and looked up to his right to find Virgil staring at him from where he was perched on a chair at the card table. “What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“Nothing,” Logan said, feeling like a child with his hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar.

“You’re trying to apologize, aren’t you?” Virgil asked with a knowing smile.

“It’s not any of your business what I’m trying to write,” Logan said.

“Why, because it’s Patton’s apology and not mine?” Virgil snickered.

Logan felt his ears heat up and he growled. “Shut up,” he said, though there was no malice in his voice, only defeat.

Virgil scampered over and sat down next to Logan. “Why is everyone insisting on apologizing and trying to make things ‘right’ around here?” he asked. “Things have been this way since middle school, it’s not like anyone has died in that period of time.”

Logan frowned and turned to Virgil. “What do you mean, since middle school? It’s been that long?”

Virgil laughed. “Uh, yeah. Ever since you and Roman had your first argument about what Thomas should do with the rest of his life, you two have been fighting every chance you get. You mean you don’t remember this?”

Logan frowned. “I have no recollection of such a decisive fight.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, maybe that’s because you fight at every chance you get? It’s not like you can remember every moment of the day, you know?”

“Well, yeah, but…” Logan trailed off. He thought he would have remembered such a defining moment in his life as losing a good friend. Was everything really that bad, that he just didn’t care enough to remember? “I just thought…that would be an important enough thing to recall.”

“Yeah, yeah, because you two were best buddies,” Virgil said, making jazz hands. “Everyone grows up, Logan. Even us. That’s not to say the argument wasn’t yours or Roman’s fault, but it does mean that you two just happened to grow apart. No use crying over spilled milk, you know what I mean?”

Virgil left the room and Logan frowned. “No, I don’t believe I do,” he muttered to himself.

He could figure out Virgil’s defeatist attitude at a later time, however. Right now he needed to apologize to everyone for what he had done, and deciding how to do that in words was difficult. If he could actually express the emotions he tried to suppress then everything might be okay, however since he couldn’t, he had to struggle with this form of sharing instead.

A couple hours and several dozen sheets of paper later, Logan had composed apologies for the other three to read and determine if they chose to forgive him or not. It was painful to think about the possibility that they might not forgive him, and he might be forever an outcast, but he was going to try and force himself to think positive, just once, about this particular subject matter.

Logan folded each of the others’ apologies into thirds, conjured three envelopes, and put one essay-turned-apology into each envelope. Labeling each of the envelopes with the intended recipients name, he then placed the envelopes underneath each person’s door. After that, he simply went to his room and closed his eyes, trying to see if he could cofront while waiting for an answer from the others. He knew that if cofronting didn’t kill him, the suspense would.

Logan felt briefly like he was floating in a vast space of nothingness before the outside world snapped into focus around him. He couldn’t feel Roman nearby, only Thomas, so he supposed that this was going to count towards some of his allotted fronting time this week.

What he first felt when he tuned into Thomas startled him, though. There was a short burst of happiness from Thomas that Logan was pretty sure didn’t appear before he checked. Why would Thomas suddenly perk up when Logan was checking on him? Unless…unless he knew someone else was there…

A myriad of assorted curse words flew through Logan’s mind like wildfire, but he elected to ignore them. It could be a coincidence that Thomas perked up, it could also be that Logan appeared and wanted to get to work that made Thomas happy.

He didn’t really believe that, but he was going to tell himself that anyway because the alternative terrified him. Taking in his surroundings, he felt himself calm into a soothing state. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, perfect for staying inside and curling up with a book to read. “Finally, some time to read up on astronomy,” Logan said to himself.

Looking around, he found the book on astronomy already laid out on the table, and Logan somehow instinctively knew that Roman put it there for this express purpose. Logan smiled. Maybe everyone really could get along if they were willing to work like this. It wasn’t as far off an idea as he might have expected, and he accepted this opportunity with open arms. He really wanted to feel like he belonged again.

“You always belong,” he heard a voice mutter from nearby, and Logan startled, front slipping through his fingers until he desperately grabbed hold of it again.

Surely Thomas hadn’t…of course he didn’t, Logan assured himself. Thomas didn’t know about the system, Patton had said himself that Thomas didn’t know years ago.

_He said that Thomas didn’t know as far as he knew_ , his mind taunted.  _Thomas could still know_.

Logan shook off the thought quickly and got settled with the book, forcing that thought from his head. Of course Thomas didn’t know, because if he knew, that meant he was somewhere hidden in the Mind Palace, and just didn’t come out of his room for…reasons unknown, which was completely illogical.

The book was good, at least. Full of new facts that Logan eagerly stored away for later use and possible experiments if he wanted to record the stars he could see each night with Thomas. That could be really fun.

Out of nowhere, Logan started to feel slightly giddy, and he perked up the more he read. It wasn’t the discoveries themselves that was giving him this high–that felt different. This was something new. Not entirely new, but new nonetheless. It appeared that while he was influencing Thomas, Thomas was also influencing him. Logan didn’t quite understand how that was possible without Thomas knowing he was there, but for the sake of not spoiling his mood he didn’t think about it too much.

He got hunger signals pretty quickly afterward and the giddiness waned as Logan went into self-care mode. Looking through Thomas’ memory, the last time he ate was breakfast, so it was past time to find something for lunch.

A quick duck into the kitchen proved virtually no food, but it did reveal two leftover slices of pizza left. Not the healthiest meal, but they could always eat something better a little later on. Microwaving the slices was easy, and as soon as he finished lunch he was heading back to read.

Logan felt a tugging at the back of his consciousness meaning he was wanted back in the Inner World, and he grumbled a bit, wanting to stay at front longer. It felt entirely too long since he had been in control without Patton, Roman, or Virgil nearby. Still, unless he wanted to bring someone else to front and have a conversation blatantly where Thomas could hear, he needed to go back inside. He set up for Thomas to continue reading if he wanted and then opened his eyes in the Inner World, finding Patton knocking frantically at his door. The odd thing was, just as he was leaving, he could have sworn he heard a, “See you soon, Logan.”

The knocking intensified, stopping that train of thought in its tracks.

With a roll of his eyes, Logan opened it and was immediately crushed in a hug. “Of-course-I-forgive-you-how-couldn’t-I-you’re-so-sweet!” Patton said in one long breath.

Logan gasped for air and Patton let him go, still beaming. “Patton, I was cofronting,” Logan said with a slight grimace.

“Oh, sorry!” Patton said. “I was just super excited and wanted to let you know everyone read your letters and they’re all willing and wanting to get back to how things were before if you are. No one really knows how but we’re hoping the second stage of the truce will help!”

“Virgil agreed to being a part of it?” Logan asked, brows furrowed.

“Yeah! After Roman apologized this morning, and then you doing it this afternoon, he really wanted to give you guys another chance!” Patton exclaimed.

Well, that was sweet, and Logan felt his heart warm again to the slightly giddy feeling he had before. “I look forward to deciding how the truce will finally be set up once completed, then,” Logan said. “Is there a time that everyone is thinking about meeting?”

“Tonight in the common room?” Patton asked hopefully.

“Sure,” Logan agreed. “If you don’t mind, I wish to go back to fronting again.”

“Yeah, yeah! Of course!” Patton said, closing the door. “I’m proud of you!”

For some reason, that made the giddy feeling in Logan’s chest intensify. He went back to his bed and closed his eyes, feeling himself slide into front again, this time with a bit more ease. Thomas was still reading, and Logan quickly caught up using Thomas’ short term memory.

Logan continued to read until for some reason, a small amount of fear bloomed where the giddiness once was. This was still Thomas’ influence, no doubt, but what could cause this reaction…except Virgil?

Now paying close attention to the nagging feelings Logan could get at front, he felt closely for how Thomas was doing. He felt a welcoming presence, undoubtedly Thomas. But then he also felt anxiety tugging in the opposite direction of the happy mood, leaving Logan conflicted. Was this what Thomas felt when Logan started an argument with Roman?

Straining his ears to listen in hope that he could catch something going on, he barely made out, “…just nervous, you know? Last time I tried to help keep the peace I was called a harm to you and everyone else.” That was Virgil.

“You’ll do fine, Virge. You want to be a part of this and the others are welcoming you to do it, so I wouldn’t worry.” Thomas? Thomas was talking?  _To Virgil_?

Logan felt himself in limbo between front and the inner world, seeing what was outside but hearing the internal dialogue clearer now. “Logan is listening to us, you realize,” Virgil said.

“His form’s shaking a little bit next to me on the bed,” Thomas said. “I’m co-con with him so I can  _sense_  him without seeing him, I’m sure if you focused you could tell he was here too.”

“Ah, last time Logan and I fronted together it didn’t exactly end well,” Virgil said. “So I think I’ll pass on all three of us being co-con. Think he’ll form fully?”

“He’s currently freaking out, so probably not right now,” Thomas laughed.

Logan blinked and suddenly he was in front again, this time distinctly alone, and his breathing picked up. What…was that? And where was Thomas? He didn’t remember the last time he was alone at front, if there even was a last time!

Well, the last thing he should do was panic. He went back to reading the book, hoping to distract himself from his thudding heartbeat and quickened breathing. He couldn’t do that for long before he ran a hand over his face and sighed. Okay. Okay, Thomas definitely knew about the system. And Virgil knew that Thomas knew. Why didn’t Virgil say anything?

No, a gut feeling told him he couldn’t blame Virgil for this. Especially not after he had alienated Virgil all those years ago. This was something no doubt Virgil didn’t even want to share.

But Thomas…Thomas was no longer frontstuck if he had left, right? That meant he was somewhere in the Inner World. And Logan had until tonight to find him if he wanted to do it before the truce.

Another tug told him it wouldn’t be easy, but he responded to the tug with slight irritation and a stubborn determination he usually saved for arguing with Roman.

The tugging went away, feeling a little defeated, if that was possible, and Logan realized that must be what influencing felt like. It was strange, to say the least. Logan would have to talk to Thomas sometime about how it felt and get more data on the matter. It was simply fascinating, but now was not the time to focus on it.

Logan looked around, and looked down at his hands, frowning. He was alone at front. What was he supposed to do? What did Thomas do when he was alone?

_TV_ , his mind told him. Or, rather, he supposed Thomas was telling him, because that voice in his head did not sound like his own.

He turned on the TV and switched channels until he was on a documentary, and closed his eyes as he let the words wash over him. How did he know that what had just happened…really happened? It was so disorienting, he couldn’t imagine how Thomas felt if he heard arguments in his head all day.

When Logan opened his eyes he was back in the Inner World, in his own room, and he was disappointed. He was hoping he’d get to see Thomas’ room, maybe give him a proper hello.

The first one he might ever have actually given the other.


	10. Chapter 10

Virgil was tending to the roses in the garden when he heard it. The steady  _rap tap tap_  of someone knocking on a wall. There was a pause and some muttering, before another solid three taps were given, slightly closer but hardly distinguishable as being such from the first.

Ensuring he hid his gardening gloves and supplies in his normal spot under the rose bush’s longer stems, Virgil stood and rounded the bush to examine what was making the noise. He snickered when he found Logan, ear pressed up to the outer wall of the Mind Palace, tapping away.

“Uh, Logan…what are you doing?” Virgil asked the fellow headmate.

“Ssh!” Logan hissed. “I’m listening to see if there are any hidden parts of the Mind Palace that I can’t see.”

“Oh…okay?” Virgil said hesitantly, voice rising at the end like a question. “Why are you doing that? I thought you knew the Mind Palace inside and out. We all do.”

“Thomas is somewhere in the Mind Palace, Virgil, some room which none of us have as of yet found. That doesn’t strike you at all as odd? I have examined every wall on the inside of the Mind Palace and found no hidden rooms. So, naturally, if one part of the wall on the  _outside_  sounds different than it should, as in, there is a room where there  _shouldn’t be_ –I’ll have found him!” Logan explained triumphantly.

Virgil felt his stomach sink. He had started the same hunt for Thomas years ago, when the Mind Palace was forming and one day Virgil realized he hadn’t seen Thomas in a while. That was the day that he realized Thomas was frontstuck, and a mere two months if not one singular month after Roman had appeared and decided to help decorate their Inner World so it was “fit for the royalty it would hold”. Somewhere in that building Thomas got cut off, and Virgil had yet to find a crack in the illusion that would lead them to Thomas. “Logan. You’re not going to find anything,” Virgil said.

“No, Virgil, I don’t think you understand, Thomas is here, he’s just–”

“He’s stuck in a version of his bedroom somewhere in the Inner World, yeah, I’ve visited him,” Virgil finished. “But you can’t find him.”

“Of course I can!” Logan said, affronted. “I can do this! I know I can find him, if I could only figure out the ambient sounds of the courtyard and correlate them with the sounds I am hearing when listening to the differences in the wall structure, I can do this!”

“Logan, you can’t, I’ve tried, and I can tell you, you can’t!” Virgil insisted.

Staring at him a long moment, Logan said. “Well maybe you tried years ago but it’s possible the structure has changed since then, and I still believe–”

“It wasn’t years ago that I last checked, Logan, it was in the middle of the night Sunday!” Virgil exclaimed. “I  _started_  the search years ago, yeah, but in all this time I haven’t come any closer to figuring out where Thomas is than when I first started! You don’t think that I would just search once for my best friend and then decide that, welp, since he wasn’t there when I first checked, I would give up the search?!”

Logan stared at him and Virgil felt the backs of his eyes get hot. This was not something he liked to talk about. Because he saw Thomas as his best friend, perhaps his only friend, and he wasn’t even able to see him regularly. He could only see him when the others weren’t fronting to notice, and he couldn’t even just walk into Thomas’ room and flop onto his bed whenever. He was stuck having to go through all these hoops just to see his friend, and even then he wasn’t guaranteed that he’d get to see anyone but himself.

“It…it appears that I have made an error in my calculations. I did not realize that you and Thomas were that close. My apologies,” Logan said.

Virgil’s eyes traveled to the ground and he shook his head. “I just don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know anymore. Sometimes I doubt that he’s even around still, you know? I mean, obviously he’s at front, but I worry that I make up finding my way into his room when I get ready to cofront. I worry that Thomas doesn’t really exist in the Inner World anymore. That…that I’ll never be able to just…hug my best friend again. To joke around with him, with all of us together. And…and it just makes me feel…scared…”

Logan’s frown deepened. “Would it be acceptable at this juncture to give you a form of emotional support such as a hug?” he asked.

Virgil shrugged. “I guess. Can’t exactly remember the last time I’ve had positive human contact outside Thomas’ room.”

Logan pulled him into a tight embrace and Virgil buried his head in Logan’s shoulder. It felt reassuring, to know that someone was out there who wouldn’t judge him for his fears. “I am certain that Thomas is still somewhere in the Inner World,” Logan murmured. “Even if I couldn’t see his room, I felt both your and his presence when cofronting earlier. He’s not gone. You don’t have to be afraid of losing him.”

Virgil nodded and offered a weak smile. “Thanks, nerd. That almost makes me feel better enough to wait for the truce tonight.”

“You don’t have long to wait,” Logan said. “You’ve been out here several hours. What were you even doing out here in that time?”

Virgil shrugged. “Helping out with the flowers,” he said simply. “Don’t want them drying up before they bloom so I figured I’d water them.”

Logan nodded. “Well, in that case, would you like to go inside and see if the others are ready early? No doubt if they are we would all love to get this over and done with so we can all agree on something.”

“Yeah,” Virgil said, feeling hope bloom in his chest. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

The second Virgil and Logan walked through the front doors of the Mind Palace, they were attacked by a hyperactive puppy–or rather, a hyperactive Patton. In Virgil’s mind, that equated to about the same thing. “Guys guys guys guys guys! I was just about to go looking for you! Where have you been?!” Patton asked.

“Uh, we’ve been outside, Patton,” Virgil said. “Why all the excitement?”

“Because!” Patton exclaimed. “Roman said he’s ready to start the truce early if you are! Thomas is just going to be hanging out with some friends for a while, so we’re free to hang out here without influencing him or cofronting if we want to work on the truce?”

“Actually, Patton, we were about to ask you the same thing,” Logan said. “Virgil and I have no objections to starting the truce early. I assume that we will be operating much like we did before? Virgil, did you come up with any conditions about how much you might wish to front?”

Oh. Virgil hadn’t thought that might be a possibility. Going slightly red, he said, “No, I actually didn’t think that far ahead. But whatever, right? It’s not like I probably get much leeway anyhow, so it’s really not that big of a deal.”

Logan shot him a look. “Virgil, the whole point of the truce is so that we can all be reasonably happy with what fronting time we have. We will be willing to accommodate any needs necessary for your satisfaction in this endeavor, if it is at all possible.”

Virgil didn’t quite know how to respond to that. People being nice to him, it always felt unusual nowadays. He felt like that was a bad sign, but if everyone was willing to help him make the changes he needed so that he no longer felt that way? So much the better when it came to the truce. “Yeah, all right,” Virgil said. “Let’s get this party started, then. I’m interested to see what happens, at any rate.”

Patton cheered and ushered them over to the card table from before, this time covered with a fancy table cloth with a bowl of snacks sitting in the middle of it.

“Roman, you can summon a real regal table if you want to, and instead you just slap a fancy tablecloth over a card table?” Virgil asked.

Roman shrugged. “Sometimes the greatest things come from simplicity, Hot Topic. No need to question it.”

“You just didn’t feel like moving the card table to wherever you got it from, then,” Virgil snickered knowingly.

“We are not here to discuss my work ethics,” Roman said, face turning slightly red. “We’re here to go over the truce. Which, admittedly, needs some adjusting, perhaps some fine-tuning of how much fronting time each person gets.”

Virgil at least agreed on that point, so he silently sat down at the table, as the others all got comfortable as well. Once everyone was seated and comfortable, and Patton was getting into the snacks, Logan tilted his head forward slightly and asked, “Shall we begin?”

“You don’t have to make it sound like a horror movie,” Virgil said with a twitch of a smile. “But yeah, I’m ready to start talking I guess.”

“Mmph,” Patton mumbled around a bite of food. He moved the snacks out from the center of the table and put down the paper featuring the original rules of the truce.

“That is what we agreed upon in the first meeting,” Logan said, sliding the paper over to Virgil. “Feel free to read it, and then tell us what you would like in terms of fronting time, sharing front, et cetera, and we will see if we can accommodate it.”

Virgil looked it over, and felt it made sense that Roman and Logan would fight for as much time as they could get up front, either pre- or post-apology. Just because they were going to try and get along didn’t mean their goals had changed to match just yet. Though he was mildly surprised there was a third of fronting time for both him and Patton combined. “I want front time for both me and Patton, but I’m not picky about how much time I get at front, so long as I get some time alone. I don’t want to have to be supervised every time I try to help Thomas.”

Roman started to protest but Logan held a hand up. “Unsupervised time is a reasonable request, considering both Roman and myself have set times for that already. In fact…” Virgil looked at Logan, the man’s tone of voice indicating something big was about to happen. “I am willing to reduce some of my fronting time in order to give you more, based on our discussion outside today. How does twenty percent of fronting time sound? I’ll give you ten percent of mine so you and Patton can each have about twenty percent unsupervised.”

“Logan…I don’t know what to say,” Virgil said. And he really didn’t. The pure surprise and joy he got out of hearing that he’d have more guaranteed time with Thomas made him happier than he had been in a long time.

“Say yes and we’ll revise the truce,” Logan said.

Roman looked between the two, uncertain. “I do not wish to come off as hostile, Logan, but are you certain this is a good idea? I mean, Virgil is…”

“Virgil is the one who processes fear and is a common root of Thomas’ anxiety, but fear can be productive as well, and Virgil can and has shown surprising capabilities when it comes to calming himself down in overwhelming situations. I believe the logical course of action would be to reward him for his behavior. And the emotional component–well, I don’t have much insight on that.”

Virgil found himself smiling, truly smiling. He mouthed a small “Thank you” to Logan, which Logan nodded his acknowledgement of subtly. Patton looked between everyone. “No protests?” he asked.

Roman had frowned in consternation. “Actually, I believe I would like to make a gesture of good faith towards both Logan and Virgil. Logan, I will make you only reduce your percentage of fronting by five, I will take the other five to make the extra ten percent the others can have. As always, if this proves to be a bad idea, we can revise the truce at a later date.”

“Thanks, Roman,” Virgil said, grin threatening to overtake his entire face.

“Just don’t go around blabbing about it to everyone,” Roman said. “That kind of excitement is entirely too…extra since everyone was here to witness this.”

“Not everyone,” Patton pointed out. “Thomas is still…wherever he is nowadays. I always wondered what happened to him, but obviously he’s still kicking somewhere.”

Everyone went silent for a moment, acknowledging this declaration and not willing to disturb the sudden somberness in the air. Patton seemed oblivious to it, however. “All right! So the rules are still the same otherwise? Work comes before pleasure, disagreements are to be dealt with quietly, all that stuff is still good?”

Everyone nodded, even Virgil. He was surprised everything was moving this quickly. He expected a lot more arguing about his being able to front, a lot more shouting when people got agitated. This was…peaceful. It almost made Virgil forget how everyone was arguing not two weeks before.

Almost.

Patton adjusted the rules accordingly, and passed the truce over to Virgil to sign, which he did quickly. Everyone looked at each other, uncertain of what they should do next. “Does anyone feel like a game of  _Monopoly_?” Roman proposed.

Logan and Patton laughed, but Virgil felt himself being pulled out of the Inner World and to front by Thomas calling his name. In the blink of an eye, Virgil was sitting next to Thomas on his bed, and another blink let him look at the body from Thomas’ point of view. “What’s going on?” Virgil asked.

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “But something feels wrong and I was hoping you could figure out what it was? While I focus on driving?”

“I thought you were hanging out with friends?” Virgil asked.

“I was. They changed where they wanted to meet at the last minute. Now please? It’s raining hard and I need to concentrate on the road.”

That sentence alone made Virgil leap into overdrive. He checked if they had enough gas. They did. He checked if the wipers were working, and turned them up to full speed just to be safe. Thomas was heading downhill and Virgil thought he might want to slow down some, so he gently pressed on the brakes. Nothing happened.

Oh, no. No no no no no no. This was bad, this was bad, this was bad!

Wait. Stop. Deep breaths. It was raining and the road was wet. As nerve-wracking as that was, that meant the brakes might need a little more pressure to work the same amount. He pressed the brakes harder. Still nothing.

Bad bad bad bad bad!

“Uh…Virgil? Your freaking out is making me freak out,” Thomas said in a strained voice.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m gonna get the others,” Virgil said. He focused on the Inner World just long enough to shout, “Everyone to front  _now_!” before focusing on the outside again, where they were now going down the hill and picking up speed.

“Oh, dear, we are moving at a rather alarming rate,” Logan said, the first one to appear at front. “What is the matter?”

“Break failure,” Virgil said, running a hand through his hair before realizing the body was repeating the action, and forced himself to keep his hands on the wheel.

“We need to find a safe place to pull off the road and allow the car to slow down naturally, then. Take your foot off the gas pedal and pull over as soon as possible,” Logan said.

“When?! Logan, we’re on a road with no extra space to pull over! And if we slow to a crawl on the main road, we’ll definitely get in a car accident!”

“Accident?!” Patton shrieked, the next person to make his presence known. “What’s going on?! Why are we getting into a car accident now?! Oh, why did I make everyone step back from front?!”

Virgil’s focus was now torn between an argument with Logan, reassuring Patton, and focusing on the road. “Oh, not good not good not good,” Virgil muttered. “But that’s okay, this is okay, we can get through this guys, no worries! All right? We can do what Logan said, as soon as we find a road that we can pull off to the side on. No big deal!”

“No big deal? No big deal?!” Roman asked, voice rising in volume and pitch. “Virgil! We could very well  _die_  out here and you’re saying this is no big deal?!”

“Not  _helping_ , Roman!” Logan exclaimed.

“Oh, well, sorry, Mister Logical! I wasn’t aware that trying to downplay a highly dangerous situation was a good idea!” Roman snapped.

“Guys, please, Thomas needs to focus on the road, just help us figure out how to get through this safely!” Virgil said, voice rising ever higher and higher.

Patton was freaking out, causing the body to shake, or was that Virgil doing it? He couldn’t be sure anymore, and he wasn’t sure he really should be focusing on that.

“The road, the road, gotta focus on the road,” Virgil said, continuing to take deep breaths. “Thomas, just continue driving as normal. When we can find a place to stop, we’ll stop.”

“Virgil…you don’t have a plan for this, do you? In your worst case scenario list?” Thomas asked.

“Uh, no, I assumed we’d be dead by now,” Virgil said.

Logan and Roman continued to argue until Patton screamed, “Deer!”

Virgil saw a deer crossing the road and his thought process short-circuited, all of a sudden just taking on everyone’s fear at once, most notably Thomas’. Thomas swerved to the side, car going off the road to stop very suddenly in a ditch.

The air bags deployed and Thomas groaned, while Virgil was still frozen in place. He watched Thomas pull out his phone, only to find they had no service.

In the blink of an eye, he was out of front and back in the Inner World again, with everyone tearing at each others’ throats. The voices were overlapping so much Virgil couldn’t process them, only getting a general sense of this is your fault, no it’s your fault, no it’s Virgil’s for freezing up and not handling it, no it’s Patton’s for pointing out the deer, well you could have done something instead of swerved if you had the idea, you’re not _helping_.

Patton was curled up on the floor crying, and Virgil wasn’t that far off. The truce was lying abandoned on the table, just another scrap of paper the wind would whisk away. Patton’s voice cut through the others’ surprisingly well, however, when he said, “Uh, guys, there’s something important you should see…”

“Not  _now_ , Patton!” Logan and Roman shouted at the same time. The argument continued, Patton continually trying to grab everyone’s attention. Virgil turned to see what he was looking at, and there, off of the common room, was the stairway to a floor that hadn’t been there before. And standing at the bottom of the stairway was none other than Thomas himself.

Thomas rushed forward and Virgil briefly wondered why until he turned back to see Thomas holding Roman’s arm, hand balled into a fist and arm in a position ready to swing. “Hey! Hitting someone isn’t going to solve  _anything_.” Thomas said firmly. He turned to Virgil, who felt a bit weak at the knees. “You okay?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Virgil managed to rasp out.

Thomas smiled, though it was bittersweet. “Good to see you again too, Virge.”


	11. Chapter 11

When Patton first came out of his blind panic, Thomas was standing there at the edge of the room, larger than life and looking beyond lost. The others wouldn’t listen to his warnings, and they only realized Thomas was there when Roman was about to take a swing at Logan and Thomas stopped him.

After Thomas said hello to Virgil, Patton was the first to find his voice again, even if it was little more than a squeak. “Thomas?” he asked. “Wh-where have you been all these years?”

Thomas looked over at Patton, looked at the freshly made stairway in the common room, and said, “Apparently just upstairs.”

Patton shakily stood up from his position on the floor, trying to wipe away the tears that had formed over his…well, he wasn’t entirely sure what that was. A panic attack, he supposed, or something very similar. “Sorry I look like a mess,” Patton said with a laugh.

“You don’t look like a mess,” Thomas said, brows furrowing. “You look exactly how I’d expect to feel in a car accident.”

“How are you here?” Logan asked.

Thomas turned to look at him and shrugged. “Apparently getting into a bad accident is good for dissociation? I’m really not sure about why.”

Logan looked like he was about to burst with more questions, but Thomas held up his free hand. “Uh, before we start all talking at once, I’d really like to emphasize again the point that fighting is going to get us nowhere, and then I’d really appreciate getting to speak to Patton…alone, preferably.”

“M-me?” Patton asked.

Thomas nodded. “You first, at least. I want to talk to everyone here about how exactly everything got to this point, but considering when I showed up you were curled up in a ball ready to cry, I think we need to talk now rather than later.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m fine!” Patton said, forcing a smile. “I just got startled and I empathize with you guys so I got overwhelmed for a second, is all!”

“Falsehood,” Logan said, very calmly, and Patton realized that he was getting the same treatment now that Logan gave Roman when he was being difficult. “That is not a simple overwhelmed response, Patton, not when you’re blaming yourself.”

Patton wanted to argue, but Thomas said, “Patton, will you come with me to my room? Please?”

“Well…I guess I could, for a minute or two…” Patton said, reluctant to leave but also eager to see where Thomas had been for years.

Thomas let go of Roman’s arm, which dropped limply to its side. He looked between Roman and Logan. “We will be talking too, both of you, don’t think that you’re off the hook since right now I’m talking to Patton.”

Patton was led to Thomas’ room and he didn’t even spare a glimpse at the common room as he left, fully excited about seeing Thomas again by now.

All the posters on the walls, the playbills from shows long past, it made Patton smile, because it was something only Thomas could combine. And it looked much like his bedroom in real life did, so it wasn’t even an out of left-field choice. Thomas closed the door and gestured for Patton to take a seat on the bed, and he did so. Thomas sat next to him and softly said, “Patton, you know what happened wasn’t your fault, right?”

Patton jumped in surprise. “Of course I do!” he lied. “What, you think that I blame myself for car accidents for fun?”

“I think that you see other people upset and you always try to find a middle ground that everyone can work with, whether or not those people want it, and you blame yourself when those people then get upset at trying to work with each other.”

Patton laughed weakly and waved off Thomas’ concern. “Come on, Thomas, you know me! Since when have I ever taken blame from someone else and connected it to myself instead?”

“Pretty much since you formed,” Thomas dead-panned with a look. “Don’t act like you didn’t go and hide in your room to sulk off or cry out any bad emotions you felt because of something Virgil or I did. You always want people to be happy, Patton. And when they can’t be happy you blame yourself because you see it as your job to make sure that everything turns out fine. Look…I don’t blame you for what happened, any more than I blame the others. And I  _definitely_  don’t blame you for them not getting along. You think I don’t remember their petty arguments in elementary school about what was ‘scientifically accurate’ and what was 'too boring to worry about’?”

Patton snickered at the memory. Logan and Roman had always had a few squabbles, though it took them years to get this bad.

“If that wasn’t your fault, Patton, then neither was this,” Thomas said. “In fact, if what Virgil told me is true then you got everyone to agree to try and cooperate over the past week or two. Something that hasn’t happened for years, I can tell because I hear them arguing all too often even when they’re not at front.”

Patton rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that…”

“Patton. That’s not your fault! I mean it. The only one I see blaming you is yourself. If Virgil doesn’t blame you, then I wouldn’t worry about being guilty, because he doesn’t hide the truth if you’ve screwed up, right?”

With a shrug, Patton considered that information. As much as he wanted it to be true…he just wasn’t sure if he could believe Thomas. “I want to believe you, I really do,” Patton said. “But I just don’t know. Whenever the others yell it makes everyone feel bad, and everyone’s supposed to feel good, not terrible! And I’m the one who can make them feel better, so I should!”

“At the expense of yourself?” Thomas challenged. “No one should have to be responsible for something they didn’t start and have no hand in. It’s not your job to make everyone happy, Patton. Do you deal with a lot of good emotions? Absolutely. Do you deal with the bad ones too? You’d better believe it, though I’m suspecting you don’t handle those as healthily as the good ones. It’s okay to feel sad, Patton. You’re allowed to be upset. I give you full permission to cry.”

Patton’s eyes got hot and he leaned against Thomas, who pulled him into a hug. “It’s okay,” Thomas murmured. “It’s okay, Pat, promise.”

“It’s just so frustrating when they keep going out looking for a fight,” Patton admitted. “And just when they were apologizing and getting used to sharing front, this happens and it’s like there never was a truce to begin with.”

“Virgil told me about the truce,” Thomas said. “I’m really impressed with your strength, Patton, it takes something else to get two people who have started to hate each other to agree to ease up a little.”

Patton sniffled and offered Thomas a watery smile. “Thanks. It wasn’t easy, not by a long shot, but they’ve done so much when it comes to getting along. They really enjoyed the game night we all put together. I thought we were really going to get along from now on.”

“Who says you won’t?” Thomas asked. “I’m not exactly front-stuck anymore, Patton, I can help mediate when it gets to be too much. You’re not alone in this, buddy. I would go so far as to say that considering how much the others obviously care about your opinion, you never were.”

Patton’s floodgates broke open and Thomas just continued to hug him, shushing him quietly and reassuring him it was all right, he could cry if he needed to. Patton just clung to Thomas like he might disappear at any second. Thomas was always the inter-system mediator and he sincerely missed having someone to help him around the place. All the work and everything…sometimes it just became too much for one guy to handle. “I’m glad you’re back, Thomas,” Patton murmured.

“You’re not the only one, believe me. I get tired of seeing these same walls over and over again.”

Patton laughed and wiped the last of his tears away. “So…you could talk to Virgil?” he asked.

“In a way, yeah,” Thomas said. “He didn’t know where I was, if that’s what you’re asking. He’d occasionally materialize in my room, usually when trying to front, according to him. After a while, he got the hang of it outside of fronting and he’d come here just to talk a lot of the time.”

Patton nodded, though he didn’t exactly understand what Thomas was talking about.

“I don’t understand how it works either, Patton, don’t worry!” Thomas laughed. “That’s just the way it was. And I’m assuming that he never told you because he didn’t want to get your hopes up. We didn’t really know how he could get in here, and I couldn’t ever leave front entirely in order to get out of this room, so we tried to make do with what we had, but it wasn’t easy.”

“I bet it wasn’t,” Patton said, looking around.

“Hey, listen, Patton, I need to talk to the others some too, you know?” Thomas asked. “I’m not planning on getting frontstuck again anytime soon, so we can talk more later. But I need to talk to them right now too, so is it okay if I let you go back downstairs?”

“Yeah,” Patton agreed. “So long as we can talk more later.”

Thomas nodded, opening the bedroom door and letting Patton walk out. “Tell Roman he’s next, please?”

“You got it,” Patton said, walking down the stairs to the common room.

* * *

“Roman, Thomas wants to speak to you,” Patton said when he entered the common room again.

Logan and Roman were on opposite sides of the room and Roman appeared beyond befuddled. “Me? Why me?”

Patton shrugged. “I don’t know, but he wants to talk to you next. You can probably ask him a couple questions before he gets to talking if you really need to, I doubt he’d just ignore you to get right down to business.”

Roman nodded and left the room, and immediately Logan was pouncing on Patton. “Did you see the inside of his room? What was it like? How was he acting? How is he taking the fallout from the accident?”

Patton blinked a couple times. “He took the accident better than any of us did, I think,” Patton said. “And his room just kinda looks like…our room at home, except covered in posters about things he likes and stuff that is obviously not in our room today but might have been before. It’s just…I don’t know how to describe it other than the fact that it’s Thomas.”

“That’s the exact way I feel about it,” Virgil said with a laugh. “It’s undeniably his room, I think even Roman would agree that this is something Thomas and Thomas only could have.”

Logan turned to Virgil. “I heard you at front earlier today. You knew about Thomas being in that room.”

“Yes and no,” Virgil said, leaning back into the couch. “I knew about his room, yes. I knew he was there, yes. I knew the location of the room? No. I didn’t know where he was, I didn’t even know how I got to his room in the first place. Some sort of…of astral projection or something like that, I seriously don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing, though, about this whole situation no one’s talking about: Thomas? He’s tough. He was stuck in that room for years, and he never complained beyond a few jokes. He only got to hear about you guys from me. In fact, for a while he was convinced he had made us all up and we were just imaginary friends from his childhood that he outgrew. Do you know how long it took for me to convince him you guys were real? It was a while. But once I did, he never lost faith in the fact that you existed, that the Inner World and the Mind Palace were real places. Most of us wouldn’t last a week trapped in our rooms, and Thomas has done it for literal years. That’s hardcore.”

Patton nodded. “Yeah, that’s really…that’s something. I don’t think I could do that. And, Logan, don’t blame Virgil for not telling us. Thomas told me himself he didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. And we weren’t exactly the nicest to Virgil, even I’m guilty of snubbing him on occasion. Why would he share this with us when all we wanted to do was hurt him?”

“We didn’t intend–”

“But we did,” Patton insisted. “Not on a conscious level, maybe, but we’re guilty of snubbing him in more ways than one, Logan. If this was something private Virgil wanted to keep to himself, it wasn’t hurting us, was it?”

“I suppose not, but it would have been nice to know, still,” Logan said with a sigh.

Virgil shrugged. “Sorry man. You gotta earn my trust before you can know my deepest, darkest secrets.”

“This was neither deep nor dark,” Logan said. But he sighed again. “We screwed this up, didn’t we?” he asked.

Everyone in the room looked at each other uncomfortably. “Probably,” Patton admitted. “But it’s not all our faults, there were some things about this out of our control. Plus, if we blame ourselves for everything, we can’t function right. And…and I think Thomas would say we need to focus on our jobs now. Our  _real_  jobs. You know how I thought it was my job to make sure everyone was happy? Turns out it’s just to process strong emotions that aren’t fear, meaning I’ve shoved down a lot of what my job is over the years. If the emotion I have to process is happiness, that’s great, if it’s not, that’s okay too. We fit ourselves into too tight boxes sometimes. Thomas pointed out that everyone being upset wasn’t my fault, so by that logic, we can’t say that just one person screwed up the accident, because all of us have parts to play in it. So we can only say we screwed up our particular part!”

Virgil laughed. “Yeah, well, I screwed up my part pretty badly, I almost made Thomas freeze…again.”

“But you helped him, Virgil! You helped with the fear Thomas couldn’t process!” Patton protested.

Virgil shrugged. “I guess. I won’t blame myself for freezing up if you don’t blame yourself for feeling upset, deal? That’s something both of us need to work on, accepting natural responses or whatever.”

Patton nodded and walked over to the couch, sticking his hand out. “Deal,” he agreed.

Once Virgil shook Patton’s hand, he stood and left the room. “Be right back, I need to grab something real quick,” he said.

Patton looked at Logan and frowned. “What do you think he’s getting?” he asked.

Logan shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t the faintest.”

Virgil came back into the room with an old, beat-up binder that looked to be on its last legs and filled with loose-leaf paper. Patton looked at it carefully, but didn’t ask what was in it. He got the feeling that answer was too personal.

When it was clear that Roman and Thomas were still talking and might be doing that for a while, Patton sat down at the card table and sighed. “I can’t believe that this happened,” he said. “The body’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, we’d know if we were unconscious?”

“We wouldn’t be up and talking if we were unconscious,” Logan said. “So it stands to reason we are still awake. However, with no one at front it is highly likely at this point we are severely dissociating in a fashion.”

Virgil nodded and sighed. “I don’t want to go back out there,” he muttered. “It was dark and cold and raining, and I hated it. There was too much fear. Even for me.”

Logan and Patton glanced at each other, Patton worried, and Logan…well, Logan had his brows furrowed, but if it was pensive or just confused, Patton couldn’t tell. Whichever it was, Patton knew that what Virgil was saying was not good. If there was too much fear even for the person who handled fear to handle (and how was that for a tongue-twister), then what would that mean when eventually some poor soul had to go out and front and figure out what to do?

“Could we try calling someone for help? I know it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, but maybe someone can figure out where we are if we call?” Patton asked.

“We didn’t have any cell service,” Virgil said. “Doubt we would unless we walked back down the road in the direction we came from, and we were just in a car accident. I sincerely doubt we’re in any condition to be walking anywhere.”

“Actually, we are rather fortunate for surviving this crash without any immediately noticeable problems. Road crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged fifteen to twenty-nine, and two-point-three-five million people are injured or disabled in America annually because of car crashes,” Logan said, readjusting his glasses.

Virgil stared at him a long moment before asking, “Why do you  _know_ that?!”

Logan shrugged. “I have always found it useful to have an assortment of knowledge on facts in an array of subjects.”

Patton shook his head and steered the conversation away from that topic. “So, since we’re not dead, what’s our game plan?”

Logan scrunched his face up in concentration. “Obviously, we have to communicate to someone where we are. But we have no way to do that without our cell phone…do we?”

“I don’t know,” Virgil said with a shrug.

Patton perked up, getting an idea. “Maybe Roman might have an idea about our situation! He’s always been creative, and he works well under pressure…well. Most of the time.”

The current situation hung thick over the air, the fact that none of them did well under this pressure all too obvious. Also obvious, was that Roman wasn’t in the room. “So what do we do, just wait for him to come back?” Virgil asked testily.

“Well, unless we want to front and make our own way from where we are, then yes, we do have to wait,” Patton said. “But the worst we might get from the rain is a cold, and I don’t think the rain is even going to get in the car unless something seriously broke.”

Logan sighed, apparently resigned to this fate. “Well, then, we shall wait. We could play cards?” he offered. “There is nothing useful we can do unless one of us has an epiphany about how to get out of here, so we may as well do something other than stand around and occasionally talk.”

“You’re the only one standing, though,” Patton pointed out. His eyes started watering without warning and Logan and Virgil’s eyes were suddenly laser-focused on him. “I’m okay,” he said. “I think Roman’s been upset by something, or else Thomas has. It’s not me, it’s someone else influencing me.”

“Does that…happen often?” Logan asked.

Patton shrugged. “Often enough,” he said.

Logan and Virgil didn’t respond to that, and Patton let the room be silent, knowing in his gut that his allies, his friends needed some time to think over this new information. “That must be…uncomfortable,” Logan said after a time.

Patton shrugged. “I don’t mind it too much. It’s just one of those things I live with, just like you guys have stuff you live with.”

The air wasn’t tense, per se, but it was certainly somber. And Patton was left wondering as to why the other two would be so serious over a simple fact of life.


	12. Chapter 12

Roman felt more than a little like the bad kid called into the principal’s office as he walked up the stairs. “Roman, why did you try to hit Logan?” Thomas asked as he closed the door to his room once Roman was inside.

“That’s it?” Roman asked with a small huff. “I don’t even get a hello or a nice to see you again or even a question of my own answered?”

“Hello,” Thomas said drily. “You. Punching Logan. Why?”

Roman glared in frustration at Thomas for about ten seconds before sighing in defeat. “He made me angry,” he said simply.

“Okay. Why did you think hitting him would solve anything?” Thomas asked. “Logan would have probably just hit you back.”

“Because it would shut him up!” Roman said, making wild gestures with his hands. “He doesn’t know what’s good for you, Thomas, half the time he just wants to sit around the house and read something, and the other half he holes up in his room and doesn’t leave for days!”

“Uh-huh,” Thomas said. “And I assume that means you know what’s best for me, then?”

Roman nodded. “Logan and I agreed to split front time, but he still doesn’t know what’s best for you.”

Thomas shook his head. “Roman, I’m going to tell you something. Both you and Logan think you know what’s best for me. And you know what? Neither of you are one-hundred percent right.”

Roman stood stock still, blinking, hands frozen in mid-air. When he managed to register those words in his brain, he sputtered. “B-but, Thomas, you don’t understand–”

“No, Roman, I understand perfectly. You want me to follow my biggest ambitions and stop at nothing until I get there. Logan wants me to be completely practical and pragmatic and further my knowledge of whatever I’m interested in at that point. And I can’t completely follow either of those paths. You can’t be a one-man show, Roman. You want to reach for the stars, but the way you keep on turning and reaching for different ones only means that we’re grounded for longer,” Thomas explained.

Roman looked at Thomas, and he knew he couldn’t hide the hurt on his face. He was helping Thomas all these years, couldn’t he see? He had just apologized to everyone for thinking he was more important, what more did they want from him? To be completely boring like Logan was? To have no ambitions whatsoever? “But…but I’m…I’m trying to…I’m trying to  _help_  you, Thomas!”

“I know,” Thomas said, holding his hands up. “Believe me, Roman, I know. But there are some things that I just can’t follow my dreams for. There are things where I do have to take a step back, and logically analyze whether or not doing this is beneficial. There are times when I get fear over what I’m doing, and for good reason! Some of my dreams are terrifying, and the leaps of faith I have to make are too great. There are even times where, as much as I want to reach for a dream, Patton can point out how many people I’d hurt in the process of getting there. Following my dreams is great, Roman. And I understand that because you’re in a large part creativity, there’s nothing more you’d rather do than reach every dream we’ve ever created together. But there are some that can’t be reached, and there are some that shouldn’t, and there are some that really just can’t be a priority at all times.”

Roman still felt hurt everywhere in his heart. Thomas…didn’t like what he was literally made to do? At least, he didn’t want to have Roman plan for things all the time? How could he? He tried so hard to help Thomas, and it turned out Thomas didn’t want his help!

“It’s not that I don’t want your help, Roman,” Thomas said, walking over and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Believe me, I love your help and I’d never want you anywhere but here. You just have to understand the others help me too. You’re not the only one who can and does work for what’s ‘best’ for me. And the others deserve a chance too, don’t you think?”

Roman worried his lip. He knew Thomas was making a point, and a very good point at that. It just still stung that he wasn’t doing enough…by doing too much.

“Roman?” Thomas prompted. “Are you okay?”

Shaking his head, Roman sighed. “Fine, I suppose.”

“Roman. Understand that this isn’t an attack against you, okay? Believe me, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have without you at my side. But the others are at my side too. You  _know_  this.”

“Yeah,” Roman said. “It’s just…I suppose I’m not feeling well today. Something still doesn’t feel right.”

Thomas hugged him and Roman blinked in surprise, hugging back for lack of anything else to do. He was surprised at how good this felt, how much he  _needed_  human contact that he didn’t realize was necessary. The warm arms around him, gently pressing into his arms and back. It was reassuring in ways he hadn’t felt in years, someone saying  _I’m here for you when you need me_. He rested his head on Thomas’ shoulder and thought on what Thomas was saying. It was something he had heard often at a young age. But he wasn’t sure he understood what it meant…until now.

As much as it hurt to be told he was wrong, this was a wake up call for Roman, almost as big as game night. He wasn’t more important than the others, because they all had a role to play. So it stood to reason that all those roles put together created the ideal ending, rather than leaning towards only one person.

Roman eased up his hugging and Thomas released him and took a step back. “Feeling better?”

Yeah, he really did. How in the world could Thomas do that? “You must be some sort of magic,” Roman laughed.

Thomas shook his head. “No, I just have a lot of experience in this area. You know, the whole human interaction thing was left up to me when it came to day-to-day occurrences for years.”

Roman turned red as he realized he was slightly responsible for that. “Uh…sorry. Didn’t think that was really…my area, I guess.”

Thomas’ eyes betrayed his amusement. “No more hitting, okay? If you and Logan have a problem, you can come to me. I’ll do what I can to sort it out.”

Roman gave a slightly sheepish smile. “Right. Thanks.”

“No hard feelings?” Thomas asked.

Roman shook his head. “I was a little hurt by you telling me I wasn’t being helpful when I was fighting for front, but I see where you’re coming from, so I’ll live.”

Thomas smiled. “Good. Do you still have any of those questions you had before or no? Because if not, I’d like to speak to Logan about why he shouldn’t be yelling at you just because he’s angry. Actually, I should just make a public service announcement about it, maybe you guys would listen if I publicly called you out.”

Roman snorted. “No, I have received your message loud and clear, no need to call me out for anything but singing too many Disney songs occasionally.”

“Oh, so you’re the one who insists on singing them at half past midnight, I’ve been wondering,” Thomas said with a wink and a grin to show that he was only teasing.

“Well, can you really blame me?” Roman asked with a chuckle.

“Yes,” Thomas said, nodding. “But only if you don’t agree to stop it when I’m trying to sleep.”

Roman made a cross-motion over his heart. “You won’t have to worry about me doing that again…for a little while, anyway.”

“I’ll take it,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Now, you seem pretty certain in what you do from day-to-day, and it’s not unhealthy, so I don’t need to talk to you about that…anything else you think we should talk about now that can’t wait until we’re out of this mess and safe at home?”

Roman thought about it. He was practically bursting with questions about how Thomas was, how he felt at seeing them again, and whether or not he counted it as a good thing. Though considering their current situation he thought all those things could probably be put on the back-burner for a little while. “I think there’s nothing too pressing,” he said with a shrug. “I would like to know how you feel about seeing all of us again, but that can wait.”

Thomas laughed and Roman felt brief offense. What was so funny about his response that it would cause Thomas to laugh?

“Of course I’m happy to see you guys again, I’m ecstatic to see how you’ve grown up from the kids I remember! It’s just a little difficult for me to share that right now, with all the infighting and the car crash and everything. When we get back home, provided I don’t pass out on the couch, we can talk more as a group. I just need to make sure no one is going to throttle each other before then. It’s nothing against you at all, or anyone else. I just really, really need us to work together until we’re home. That wasn’t happening with the way everything was going.” Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. “And, much as I don’t like our current position, there is one upside to it.”

“What’s that?” Roman asked. What could be so positive about a car accident?

“I’m not frontstuck anymore,” Thomas said with a grin. “You guys could front on your own, or I could come into your rooms and hang out, or we could explore options we never had the chance to before! The possibilities are practically endless!”

Roman smiled. Leave it to Thomas to find the bright side of things. “So we’re good?”

“We’re good,” Thomas confirmed. “Tell Logan to come up here, will you?”

Roman nodded as he opened the door. “I will.”

Once back in the common room, Roman was immediately the center of attention. Patton looked up with hope in his eyes from where he was sitting, Logan looked over worried, and Virgil had slight desperation slipping through the cracks of his mask. “Logan, you’re next,” Roman said.

Logan nodded and left the room quickly, while Virgil slumped in his seat, drumming his fingers against an old, beat-up binder. “Chin up, Virgil, you’ll get to talk to Thomas after he’s done with Logan!” Patton exclaimed.

Virgil just sighed. Roman frowned. Virgil was very despondent, more so than usual. What was the problem here? “Virgil, Thomas only talked to the rest of us first because we were either emotionally compromised or about to start a fight. You were the most stable out of all of us, which I would take as complete success! Wear that badge with pride!”

“Whatever,” Virgil sighed. “It’s not important, anyway. Just wanted to give Thomas something before we all started figuring out what to do about our car accident.”

“Ah, yes, that is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed,” Roman agreed. “How do you suppose that we figure it out?”

Virgil blinked and frowned. “You’re the creative one. You tell us!”

Roman thought about his talk with Thomas. Would including the others in this plan help? It was possible. And if they proved that they could work with Roman well, and get them to a conclusion that Roman predicted or better…well, he wasn’t about to stop them fronting then, if they gave each other a little boost. “I cannot do everything by myself at all times, Virgil; I would appreciate some help.”

“What should we figure out first, though?” Patton asked. “What do we need to know in order to get rescued? Logan was talking about figuring out a way to communicate with others where we are, but we don’t have cell service.”

“We could walk somewhere until we have service again, obviously,” Roman said, frowning. “But something tells me that would lead us nowhere fast, and in this rain it’s not advisable to walk alongside the road, we may not be seen until it’s too late.”

Virgil shuddered. “Yeah, no, not about to risk be getting hit with a car, thanks.”

Roman thought to himself. A wrecked car, no cell service, only a little cash and ID in his wallet. That wasn’t helpful. His mind was moving too fast to even make much sense out of this whole situation. This was too much, he needed order, he needed some form of organization…he needed  _Logan_.

Oh, he felt like an idiot.

“We’ll have to wait until Logan is back down here to come up with a cohesive plan,” Roman said. “I can come up with ideas but Logan is more likely to figure out what’s going to work.”

“Great,” Virgil muttered. “We have to wait until everyone is here to get everything done, meanwhile we might be dying outside, because we have no way to tell if we’re bleeding, or concussed, or even submerged in water and about to drown. Just  _great_.”

Patton started to shake and Roman turned to him in alarm. “Patton are you all right?”

“Y-yeah,” Patton said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just…I’m just…feeling Virgil’s fear. There’s a lot of it and it’s…wow, Virge, how do you live with all this running in your head all the time?”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Virgil said with a grimace. “You’re just feeling the excess. I’m dealing with most of it.”

Roman blinked. “You mean…Patton can feel what you feel?” he asked.

“Yeah, and right now he’s feeling unbridled panic,” Virgil snipped.

“Could he feel what I’m feeling, too?” Roman asked.

“Probably, but that would more likely just overwhelm him,” Virgil said.

Roman crossed his arms and considered that information. He should try anyway, shouldn’t he? “It’s still worth a shot,” he muttered. “Patton? Can you try and focus on what I’m feeling?”

Patton looked at him and shakily nodded. Roman thought about his most ridiculous, out-of-left-field never-going-to-happen fantasy and the pride he felt at coming up with it, the satisfaction of writing it down, the happiness of reliving it in his head when he got stressed.

Slowly, Patton’s breathing started to even out and the shaking lessened. Roman eased up on all his memories, lest he get so excited Patton would become borderline manic, but Patton didn’t pick up the shaking again. “Did you just…did you just get rid of his fear?” Virgil asked incredulously.

“No,” Patton said, shaking his head. “I was still terrified out of my mind. Roman just gave me happy feelings to focus on, bringing up good memories, too, so that even while I was scared, I didn’t have to focus on what was causing the fear. Sort of like distracting yourself during a panic attack. The fear’s there, but it’s not your focus, and you can process the fear in the back of your mind until it’s gone.”

Virgil’s forehead wrinkled as he thought through what exactly that meant. Roman shifted from foot to foot. What was Virgil thinking? Hopefully it wasn’t anything untoward about what happened?

“…I remember you doing that years ago when Thomas got stressed,” Virgil said. “I always assumed you were just pushing me aside and trying to get Thomas to bottle up my feelings. You were just trying to let him focus on something less stressful until he naturally calmed down?”

“Well, yes,” Roman said. “It’s dangerous to bottle emotions up, I simply wanted him to not be completely engulfed in panic all the time. It was meant to be a brief respite.”

“Wow. I, uh, I guess I owe you an apology about that, then,” Virgil said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because I assumed you were just so full of yourself that I was only a nuisance in your eyes.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize. I need to apologize, because for the longest time I  _did_  think that. But I was wrong to do so,” Roman said. “I hope that in the future, we can have fewer misunderstandings and perhaps even work together at times, rather than keeping each other back.”

Virgil nodded, before opening his binder and starting to read whatever was in it, effectively ending their conversation. Roman moved over to Patton and said, “So, anything new go on while I was talking with Thomas that I should know about?”

“Logan suggested we play cards,” Patton said with a shrug. “Nothing really big happened, we just talked about being stuck here, basically. Oh! Also, Logan asked me a lot of questions when I first came back from Thomas’ room, and I think he’s actually been worried about how Thomas is feeling right now.”

“Really?” Roman asked skeptically.

Patton nodded. “Mm-hm! He didn’t use the word 'feeling’ but I got the sense that he was worried about Thomas’ mental state. Which is sweet, but also kinda weird, because I didn’t think Logan dealt with emotions?”

Roman shrugged. “There are many things we all are learning about each other today that we didn’t know before. It is quite amusing on one hand, on the other I crave some form of a break so that all this can sink in. It’s simply so much to absorb.”

Patton nodded sagely. “Thomas told me that I was allowed to feel negative emotions, and I’m still trying to figure that out, to be honest. Because I make other people feel what I’m feeling, a lot of the time, and I don’t want to make people sad!”

“But it’s better to feel sad sometimes than simply bottling that up and waiting for it to explode,” Roman pointed out. “Especially because you influence how others feel. If you break down, it’s an emotional roller coaster for everyone. But if you just get sad every once in a while, well, you’re less likely to break down and we can just watch  _Parks and Rec_  for a little while until we feel better. It’s not such a big deal to be sad.”

Patton made a  _huh_  noise. “Does that mean that I’d be allowed to cry if I was upset, too?”

“I don’t see why not!” Roman exclaimed. “Crying is one of the best ways to get rid of sadness there is! Logan probably knows why, but after crying you feel exhausted but much better.”

Patton nodded again, humming in thought. “Why does everyone get so serious when I tell them that I’m influenced by their emotions?”

“Probably because they’re remembering their worst moments and realizing that you were feeling like that too. Our worst moments are something we would never wish on anyone, and I the thought that someone else had to experience that, just because they were going through it…it’s unpleasant.”

“But I help you guys with it!” Patton protested. “I take the stuff you can’t handle so you’re upset for shorter amounts of time and hopefully less upset overall. I help you guys when I feel that! The main problem is if I don’t get rid of it.”

Roman sat down next to Patton and hummed. “Now that you mention it, when I get excessively angry it does feel sometimes like I’m channeling my anger into something else, and when I calm down to just the right point, I can use that anger to become productive in other endeavors. That is a big help.”

“And it’s because of me!” Patton said proudly. “It’s not a bad thing, it’s really helpful and I’m more than happy to share the love!”

Roman smiled. “If only everyone in the world were like you, Patton, I don’t think there would be any more problems to work through.”

Maybe he could learn a thing or two from Patton as well.


	13. Chapter 13

Before Logan was even in the room, he was already formulating what he was going to say, and by the time he was actually in the doorway, he was already talking, “Thomas, while I acknowledge you are probably concerned, there is really no reason to be-”

“Logan,” Thomas said.

Logan was undeterred in his speech. “-I merely lost my temper for a minute, and I can assure you that it will not happen again-”

“Logan.”

“-And I can ensure that Roman and I never have to work together and have those creative differences again, if that is what you–what are you? Oh,” Logan’s speech stopped as Thomas wrapped his arms around Logan and hugged him. He pat Thomas’ back in response. He was more than a little lost as to what was going on.

Thomas took a step back and Logan resisted the urge to follow and hug him more. Whether out of touch starvation or just the need to reassure himself that Thomas was real, it wasn’t helpful. “Logan, can I speak now please?” he asked.

Logan mutely nodded.

“I’m not mad at you for arguing with Roman. Okay? I’m not mad at any of you. How could I be, when all you’re trying to do is what you think is best for me? But you don’t know what’s best for me, not fully, because I’m the only one who really knows what that is. Roman has the same problem, thinking he knows what’s best for me and trying to assert that over you. And I get it, that’s really annoying, and probably makes you feel like you’re not wanted, but that’s no reason to yell at Roman, or anyone else for that matter. Understand?”

Logan blinked once, absorbing that information. “Understood,” he said. “So in future endeavors I will make sure to ask you what you wish to be done if I am involved, and if I am not I won’t force myself to be. That’s what you’re trying to get out of this, correct?”

Thomas tilted his head to the side. “Um. Yes. Sorry, I was expecting an argument?”

Logan shrugged. “There is no need to argue when you make a perfectly logical and valid point that the only person who knows you best is yourself. I apologize for infringing on your life in a way that was rude and-or unhelpful.”

Thomas shook himself and frowned. “That was…not an expected response. Logan, are you feeling all right?”

“I don’t ‘feel’ anything,” Logan said, crossing his arms. “I’m the logical one.”

Thomas scrunched up his face in thought, turned around, went to his dresser, and picked up…was that a dragon made from polymer clay? “Take a dragon. Dragons make everything better,” he said. “I’m going to talk to you, very seriously, and mean everything I say, and I want that dragon to be a reminder of our conversation.”

“Okay, but…why a dragon?” Logan asked.

Thomas shrugged. “First thing I saw on the dresser. Now listen closely. You are allowed to feel things. Full stop. I don’t care if you swear you have no heart, I don’t care if you think feeling things is completely useless and not helpful. If you’re feeling something, you’re feeling something,  _and that’s okay._  No one is going to judge you just for feeling something, I promise you that. Okay?”

Logan blinked twice, frowning. “But…I’m the logical one. Feelings are not supposed to be part of my equation.”

“You can see things logically while still feeling emotions, Logan,” Thomas pointed out. “I know you’ve felt things from the very beginning of when you were here. I also know that you’ve always been able to step back and examine things in such a way that emotions won’t cloud your judgement. Doesn’t mean you can’t have emotions, it just means that when it comes down to it, you’re able to put them aside to do what you do best: analyze what the issue is and problem-solve.”

Logan thought through what Thomas was saying. One one hand, he didn’t believe it. His entire function was to be logical, emotions would just hurt that. But on the other hand, he really, really wanted to believe it, if only so that he could justify all the emotions he tried to drown out in work. It never seemed to help, and Logan suspected the only reason they went away at all was because of Patton taking them off his hands. He wanted to have someone justify his release of those issues, he wanted someone to tell him that it was all right, that he was allowed to cry if he needed to. “I was terrified when Virgil called us all up to front,” Logan admitted quietly. “When he started to space out I knew he was doing something, but snapping back here just to shout at us really…struck a chord in me and left me worrying. When the brakes wouldn’t work, I just…shut off the emotions and looked for a way out, but it was still quite the ordeal.”

“Are you still scared?” Thomas asked.

Logan adjusted his glasses. “It is completely illogical to be scared at this point in time, as the worst has already come to pass and now all we need is a way back home, which can easily be achieved by finding cell service, and yet…something inside me refuses to stop worrying.”

“Hey, that’s completely normal,” Thomas said. “You’re having a little anxiety, all of us get that, Virgil freaking out or not. And it’s okay to be worried, so long as it doesn’t hurt our day-to-day function. If you can still help us focus on getting out of here, then there’s nothing to worry about. Let the emotions run their course and pretty soon it will be like they were never there. Don’t stress out about it too much.”

Logan hugged his arms and shook his head. “It’s not normal for me. I prefer to be detached from emotions. They’re messy and complicated and I don’t understand them. What’s their purpose?”

Thomas shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine on that account, meaning I have no remote clue. But they’re here. It’s better to deal with them than bottle them up. Have you ever seen Patton upset?”

Logan frowned. “Not unless someone else is first, and he usually runs and hides in his room for several hours afterwards.”

“Exactly, because he bottles up his emotions and then he can’t hold it in any longer but he doesn’t want to lash out at anyone. It’s dangerous to hold that sort of thing in. Not just for you but for everyone around you. If you do something risky because you’re upset and someone else gets hurt because of it, it’s not their fault for being in your way. It lands on you because you’re the one who was making those risks in the first place. Emotions can have powerful side effects, more powerful than most people suspect. So take a breath, relax, and let yourself feel if you need to.”

Logan looked down at the dragon and projected the words Thomas was saying onto the little pieces of clay in his mind. “I will make an effort to remember this, and put the dragon on my desk in my room as a reminder when I just want to bury my head in work like an ostrich.”

Thomas smiled. “That’s good, that’s a great start, Logan.”

Logan offered a shrug and looked back up at Thomas. “It’s nothing more than a mental exercise in memory, it shouldn’t be that hard. Are you feeling all right? You are making sure that everyone else is okay but no one has said anything about how you’re feeling.”

Thomas froze for a second and Logan suspected the answer was leaning towards  _no._  “I’m not the best I’ve ever been, admittedly, but having you guys around to help me this time, in a very tangible way, helps so much. I feel like I can actually get through to tomorrow with you guys by my side.”

That was a passable answer, though Logan wished the answer could have just been a simple  _yes._  He only ever wanted to know that Thomas was okay. Logan nodded to show he heard Thomas, and hummed in thought. “I wonder what the others are up to. Particularly Virgil, he seemed…moodier than normal until game night, and while he felt a little better during the signing of the truce, this car crash certainly isn’t helping matters. I’d hate for him to spiral into a panic attack, not only is it inefficient and potentially damaging to everyone but Virgil personally deals with enough panic on a normal day,” he mused.

“I’m sure Virgil will be fine, Logan,” Thomas said. “I’m talking to him when I’m done talking with you just to make sure that everything is all right on his end. I made matters worse for him, so I should make sure that he isn’t, like, spiraling out of control. He seemed the most stable out of all of you, though, so I hoped that he could hold out until I made sure you and Roman wouldn’t throttle each other, and Patton wouldn’t go dormant.”

Logan nodded. “I can bring Virgil up now, Thomas. I just want you to answer one quick question for me.”

Thomas made a  _go on_  gesture with his hands.

“Why did you never tell any of us you knew we were here, aside from Virgil, when we were cofronting?” Logan asked. “I would have thought you would be all too eager to talk to us considering you were locked in this room.”

Thomas grimaced. “For a while I didn’t believe you guys existed, truth be told. Once Virgil had convinced me otherwise I tried to talk to you guys but I didn’t know how. I wrote little notes and things when I could but the thought of just projecting my thoughts into headspace didn’t occur to me, and I didn’t know the first thing about how to achieve it even if it would have worked. Believe me, Logan, it wasn’t out of a lack of wanting to communicate that we didn’t get to talk for so long.”

Logan felt sadness wash over him at that answer and cleared his throat to get rid of the lump forming there. “I’ll just…call Virgil up, then. Talk soon.” And he left the room before Thomas could see the tears that threatened to fall.

In the Common Room, Logan had barely opened his mouth when Virgil leapt from the couch, binder in hand, and stormed up the stairs to Thomas’ room. “Well, his mood has considerably soured since I was called up,” Logan said mildly.

“He didn’t like being last,” Roman noted.

“I think he was worried Thomas forgot about him, or something,” Patton said. “He seemed the same kind of agitated he would get whenever someone would shut him out from whatever they were doing.”

“Oh,” Logan said softly. He didn’t know what else to say, that was a seriously depressing observation. Virgil clearly felt snubbed by his best friend. That certainly wouldn’t end well.

Sure enough, muffled yelling came from the closed door to Thomas’ room, and Patton jumped. “Woah, he’s steaming,” he muttered.

“That is an understatement,” Logan said drily.

Roman pinched the bridge of his nose. “We owe that man more than one apology.”

“Agreed,” Logan said as Patton nodded emphatically.

“Logan,” Roman said. “I need your help with something.”

Logan started. Did Roman just say–no. Surely, he didn’t! Roman never needed Logan’s help with anything, and he certainly never asked for it even if he did need it! He must have misheard!

“…Logan?” Roman prompted.

Shaking himself back into the present, Logan focused on Roman. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard you. What did you say?”

“I need your help,” Roman said. “We need a way back home but I have no idea where to even start our plan!”

“Say, what’s with the dragon you’re holding?” Patton asked. “And you looked really down in the dumps when you came down here. Why was that?”

“Patton, we really should focus on getting out of here,” Roman pointed out.

“Yeah, but Virgil and Thomas might want a say in the plan too. So we should wait for them.”

Logan blinked several times, still trying to get over the fact that Roman had asked for his help. Clinging to Patton’s questions as a way to ground himself, he started talking. “The dragon is a gift from Thomas, a reminder of what we discussed. Hopefully it will help me…keep a level head longer if everything works out right.” Because if what Thomas said was true, small releases of emotion could greatly help him. “And…Thomas simply told me something that I found sad. That would be why I looked 'down in the dumps’ as you called it.”

“What did he say?” Roman asked, now interested as well.

“I asked him why he never told us he knew about us when we were cofronting, and he said it was because he didn’t know how. He tried as many different ways as he could, but none of them worked. It upset me to know that all those years, he was trying to talk to us, but we weren’t trying to talk back.”

Patton looked like he might cry as Logan finished his explanation. “He…he was trying to talk to us? The whole time?”

“Apparently,” Logan said. “I only realized what was going on with help from Virgil, because I heard him talking to Thomas, and that allowed me to focus on what Thomas was saying in headspace for the first time in years. That was earlier today.”

The other two looked at him in shock. “You…you heard him?” Roman asked. “Were you going to tell us?”

“If I could prove that it was indeed Thomas, yes. I was going to look for him and once I found him clarify if it was indeed him who I heard whilst cofronting. After that answer and armed with the knowledge of where Thomas was, I would have more than eagerly shared this information with the both of you.”

“But you didn’t want to get our hopes up in case it wasn’t?” Patton clarified.

“That’s correct,” Logan said. “I had enough hope myself in hearing Thomas that I didn’t want to get the two of you worked up only to be let down if we couldn’t find him.”

“That makes sense,” Patton said, nodding. “I mean, I still would have liked to know, but it makes sense.”

Roman quietly agreed. Logan thought for something to say, but came up empty handed, so he instead started to pace the common room, waiting for Virgil and Thomas to exit Thomas’ room so that they could work on getting out of the car and on their way home. Roman’s words from earlier came to Logan and he turned to the other, frowning. “Why would you need my help to organize a plan? You never said anything about needing my help with organizing a plan before.”

“When I try to come up with a way to get home, I can’t get all the steps straight in my head,” Roman said with a grimace. “There are too many different things that could happen at any given point for me to have a coherent plan. I don’t know how to get from point A to point B, and it’s really frustrating to admit, but pride is not more important than getting out of here. I need someone who can organize what needs to be done when, and you’re the best organizer in this head.”

Logan smiled almost imperceptibly at the praise. He always liked it when someone complimented his hard work, even if it was indirectly. “Well, we can work on an outline on what we need to plan before Thomas and Virgil reappear, to get organized and ready for when they do come down, and if they haven’t shown up in another fifteen minutes, we’ll knock on Thomas’ door at risk of death to get out of here before we die in a flash flood, or just a normal flood seeing as how we’re still in a  _ditch_.”

“Ah! So the first step would be…getting out of the ditch?” Roman asked.

“It would make sense. Even if we do not have better lighting to assess injuries outside the car, it would be beneficial to stay well away from possible flood points. It has been raining rather heavily the past few days,” Logan explained. “And if there is anything we cannot move in our attempts to get out of aforementioned ditch, then we already know of those injuries and we can address those first.”

Roman nodded and muttered to himself in thought. Logan didn’t bother listening in; if Roman wanted his help then he would also want input when he had a fully coherent plan for getting out of their current situation. He didn’t need to hear the half-baked ramblings until then.

Patton walked over to Logan and said, “Hey, if you’re gonna pace again could I do it with you? I wanna know how you think. Like, how you get ideas.”

“I was passing time rather than thinking of ideas, but if you want to follow me if I start up again I’ll try not to trample you.”

Patton grinned. “Good! Because I just really want to do  _something,_  you know? Right now I don’t feel like I can do anything, and I really need to feel like I can help in some way. Otherwise I just…I don’t know. Feel useless, obviously.”

Logan frowned. “Patton, you are anything but useless. You are hands-down the most effective emotional regulator we have. Nothing against Virgil, but he handles one emotion. You handle…pretty much all the rest.”

“Yeah, well, Thomas was pretty upset when I formed. So in addition to being a conscience, I guess I can help with his emotions when they get overwhelming. That was what I felt when I first split off, you know? It’s something that’s just…always at least vaguely familiar,” Patton said with a shrug.

Logan took this information in quickly. He knew he needed to respond to keep Patton from worrying he had over-shared, but it was valuable to know how Patton saw himself and what he was good at doing. “That makes sense, I suppose. Thomas needed a conscience, but he also needed a way to regulate emotions that he didn’t have before, and since he had already split off Virgil, it would make sense you would have a similar purpose given the similar circumstances of formation.”

“Wait…but Thomas was really upset when he made me, so that would mean…my first job was to process overwhelming negative emotions instead of giving off positive ones?” Patton asked himself. “Oh! That makes so much sense now! It also explains why I can handle a lot of sadness before it makes  _me_  sad too!”

Logan gave Patton a half-smile. Having the other realize what he was doing and what his…for lack of a better word, “purpose” was would help a lot in the future. Perhaps Patton could even accept when his own emotions caught up to him easier.

The yelling from upstairs had died down, and Logan wasn’t sure when that was, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. The last thing everyone needed was another volatile argument.

“Ah! I think I have an idea!” Roman exclaimed.

Patton and Logan turned to him. “Yes?” Logan said expectantly.

“It all depends on the damage of the car and the injuries we have, but we could either climb out the back doors or kick out the driver’s side window if we can’t get the driver’s side door open. The ditch wasn’t that deep, odds are in our favor for a short climb, which will be muddy to be certain, but not dangerous!”

Patton cheered. “We’re one step closer to getting out of here, guys! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Yes, it does give the body a bit of a thrill that we all can feel,” Logan agreed. “On a personal level, it is reassuring to know we have the start to a way back home.”

“P-personal level?” Roman asked.

Logan nodded. “I have feelings on a personal level, yes. I’m trying to get accustomed to them.”

“How is it working?” Patton asked.

Logan ran his tongue over his teeth as he thought of a good description. “It feels like trying to mimic a foreign language solely by reading the words on a sign.”

“Give it time, it’ll get better,” Patton assured.

Logan somehow doubted the truthfulness of that statement, but he didn’t doubt Patton’s conviction that it was the truth.


	14. Chapter 14

Thomas had barely closed the door after Virgil stormed in, steaming mad and out for blood, and Virgil was already growling out questions. “What did I ever do to  _you?!”_

Virgil didn’t get any response from Thomas other than a confused blink, and Virgil growled. “I don’t understand! What do the others have that I don’t?! After all these years, how could you do this to me! You’re my  _best friend,_  Thomas! Or at least, I thought you were!”

Thomas held up his hands. “Woah, hang on, Virgil. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Virgil repeated hollowly. He chuckled. “Well, I guess that seals it! I’m nothing more than  _dirt,_  am I?! No, because you’d rather have  _the others be your friends than me!”_

“What?! No!” Thomas exclaimed. “Virgil, where would you even get that idea?!”

Virgil shook in his anger as he growled out, “Well, you seemed all too  _eager_  to talk to  _them first!_  And hey, it’s not like  _they’ve always shut me out,_  giving me the idea that  _they’re better than me!_  Or at least, that they think they are…”

Thomas sighed. “Virgil, do you need a hug?”

Virgil took a shaky breath and shook his head. “I don’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity, it’s legitimate concern,” Thomas said. “Please? You’re shaking.”

Virgil sighed, putting his binder on Thomas’ bed and shrugging. “Let’s just get it over with, then.”

Thomas stepped closer and hugged him, while Virgil held his hands close to his chest. Virgil sighed and continued to shake, but all the anger was draining from his body, to be left with the raw fear that had been fueling his rage. He didn’t want to be forgotten; he didn’t want the others to replace his position as Thomas’ friend. Even if Virgil wasn’t Thomas’ best friend, Thomas was certainly Virgil’s, and it scared him beyond belief to possibly lose his best friend. “Thomas,” he whispered. “I’m scared.”

He was just hugged tighter. “I know you are,” Thomas whispered. “I am too.”

Virgil looked up and Thomas took a step back, ending the hug. One one hand, Virgil was glad, seeing as how a serious discussion was probably about to arise. On the other hand, he really needed the touch and didn’t want it to end. “Why would you be scared?” Virgil forced himself to ask. “You have everything going for you right now; you’re finally free from being frontstuck, the others are working on a plan to get us all out of this mess, and they absolutely adore you! You don’t have a reason to be scared! At least…none that I can see.”

“I was just reunited with three of my friends from childhood who have all been watching me for years even though I barely knew they existed, and I have to trust them with my life if I want to get out of this situation at all. They’ve grown up and changed in ways that I never could have imagined, and all of them are ready to defend me to their dying breath, but not each other. I would say that’s plenty reason to be scared,” Thomas pointed out.

Thomas did make a good point when he really wanted to, much as Virgil really didn’t want to admit it. “Okay, so we’re both scared, what’s that going to get us?” Virgil asked. “All it means is that the both of us might be nervous wrecks when we’re needed most.”

“Not if we reassure each other that everything will be all right,” Thomas said. “You know the three out there better than I do, do you believe that they can get us out of this?”

Virgil thought it over. After everything he had been through; the taunts, the teasing, the feelings of being unwelcome, he still believed in the others as much as he believed in himself or Thomas. “Yeah,” he said. “They can get us through this. What about you?”

Thomas blinked. “What about me?”

“Are you going to let them get in-between us?” Virgil asked. “Get so caught up in new friends that you forget about old ones?”

“Of course not,” Thomas said. “I would never do that willingly or wittingly. You and I are going to be friends through-and-through until the end.”

Virgil smirked. “Ride or die, right?”

“You know it,” Thomas laughed. “What’s with the binder, by the way? I didn’t see you have it downstairs so it must have been important for you to grab it while I was up here.”

Virgil felt his ears heat up, suddenly very self-conscious. “Oh, right, that…” He cleared his throat. “Those are, uh, letters to you. From when I’d get really frustrated or angry or scared and needed to calm down, but either couldn’t come to your room or wouldn’t due to how freaked out I was. Now that you’re not frontstuck, and can leave front if necessary, I wouldn’t have to be giving the body a panic attack if I talked to you. So the letters are a bit of a moot point. I want you to have them.”

Thomas frowned. “You…want me to have them?” he repeated. “Aren’t these really personal?”

Virgil shrugged. “Yeah, but I trust you not to show them to anyone else, and that binder’s pretty full anyway. It’s about time I started a new one.”

Thomas looked over at the binder and offered a small grin. “I really don’t know what to say, Virgil, thank you. I’m touched you’d trust me with this. I also think it’s sweet that in times of stress, you’d write to  _me,_  of all people.”

“I took over  _your_  anxieties from a very young age, I figured the least that you could do in return was be a pretend audience to all the things I saw possibly going wrong.” Virgil shook his head. “It all sounds really cheesy saying it out loud, but there’s no one I trust more than you, Thomas, I mean it. Patton and Roman and Logan? I mean, they’re great guys, but I don’t want to tell them my deepest, darkest secrets. You know all of those already. You were the first person I came to when I realized there was a possibility I might not be straight and was wondering if my whole life was a lie, for goodness sake! I can’t think of someone I’d trust more!”

Thomas smiled and Virgil mirrored the expression. “I’m really glad you’re not stuck at front anymore, it’s been too long,” Virgil said.

“I know. I’m really glad to see all of you again, but I’m especially glad that you don’t have to astral-project yourself into my room just to have a conversation anymore. I could come to your room if I needed to!” Thomas said.

“Uh, my room has a reputation for giving anyone who enters except me panic attacks, so I wouldn’t recommend that. But the emotions behind that still stand, it’s nice to be free to roam around,” Virgil agreed. “I have no doubt Roman will want to take you on adventures in the Inner World, and Logan will want to do research and projects in here with you again, and Patton will probably just want to sit next to you on the couch in the Common Room and possibly cuddle. He’s clingy.”

Thomas laughed. “Well he can’t be all bad if you’re endorsing him. Clingy isn’t even a bad thing, necessarily!”

“I know it’s not, but it’s nice to have fair warning when it comes to being tackled in a hug,” Virgil said with a sly grin.

“Oh, wow, I can hardly wait to see what’s going on with everyone these days,” Thomas said. “Besides the arguing, I mean. I can live without the arguing.”

“Can’t we all?” Virgil asked. “I don’t really know what goes on outside arguing either. Usually we just…cofront or mill around. Don’t tell anyone, but I garden outside in the courtyard. Patton may or may not color, or possibly make coloring pages? Logan cooks. And Roman…well, he’s almost always on one adventure or another when he’s not cofronting.”

“Logan cooks?” Thomas asked, mildly surprised.

“I think he compares it to chemistry,” Virgil said with a shrug. “I was just as confused as you when he figured out that he really liked it. Roman always turns the food psychedelic colors before Logan cooks, if at all possible. Sometimes the end result of Logan’s cooking looks like radioactive sludge because of it. But it’s still cool.”

“Eating something that looks like radioactive sludge could be fun, and I imagine it can’t be any more unhealthy than my regular eating habits,” Thomas joked.

Virgil smiled. “I’m…glad we’re still good. I was worried that the others would push me out of the picture…”

“Of course they won’t, I won’t let them,” Thomas assured. “You are just as important as them, Virgil, don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? You’re just as important, and just as helpful, and just as much a part of this group as any of them are. You understand?”

Tears pricked Virgil’s eyes as he nodded, a watery smile taking over his face. “Thank you,” he whispered in a raspy voice. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Of course,” Thomas said, opening his arms. “Come here, Virge.”

And Virgil threw himself into Thomas’ arms, too happy about sticking around to worry about what anyone else might think or what it would do to his reputation. He was part of a family, and no one could take that away from him now.

After a time, Virgil pulled away and wiped at his cheeks to remove any traces of him crying. “Should we go downstairs and see if the others have a plan for getting us out of this situation?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Thomas said.

And so the two opened Thomas’ door and walked down the steps, confident in their ability to get out of this mess alive.

The three others all welcomed Thomas and Virgil with open relief. “What was the yelling about in there?” Patton asked. “Something wrong?”

“No, just a little misunderstanding, is all,” Virgil brushed off. “What do you guys have by way of a plan for getting out of here?”

“Actually, we were waiting for you two to come to a conclusion in your conversation before we fully formulated a plan. It would be best for everyone involved if we had approval from the two of you as well as our own personal opinions,” Logan said. “We know of the steps we have to take in order to get home, but how we achieve those steps is still up for much debate.”

“Why don’t we just front and work on it as we go?” Virgil suggested.

Logan and Roman looked at him like he had grown a second head. “Wh-what?” Roman asked.

“Well, we can plan all we like but getting home sooner rather than later would be nice, and all that planning could come to a stop because if we move five feet away we could get cell service again. All of us can be coconscious and we can work together on the plan as we go,” Virgil proposed. “Any objections?”

Patton raised his hand. “What if we don’t know what to do in the middle of something and uh…we freeze up again?”

“Better to be somewhere someone can see us and call for help than argue over it here and risk getting into more trouble,” Virgil reasoned. “I think it would just be faster if we started walking.”

There was a pregnant pause as everyone considered this. “I trust you, Virge. Always have and always will, so I’m with you on this one,” Thomas said.

“It does have logical reasoning behind it,” Logan allowed.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt us,” Roman agreed.

“Who’s going to front and who’s going to be coconscious here?” Patton asked.

“I can front,” Thomas said. “Anyone want to cofront?”

“I can,” Virgil said. “I’ll keep an eye out for possible danger and possible help.”

“Roman and I can focus on the plan if we are simply coconscious so I won’t object if nothing untoward happens,” Logan said.

“I’ll make sure no one gets too worked up!” Patton volunteered.

Virgil looked at Thomas and Thomas was looking right back at him, a kind smile on his face. “You ready?” Thomas asked him.

Virgil nodded and closed his eyes, forcing the Inner World away so he could focus on outside.

The first thing he felt was pain. It was traveling up from his legs and radiating from his forehead. The airbags had deployed, and the front of the car had crumpled. “The insurance company is going to have a field day,” Thomas muttered next to him.

Virgil laughed. He couldn’t help it; that was something only Thomas would worry about. Then again, in this system it was hard to say anyone was responsible about the outside world except Thomas.

Undoing his seat belt, Virgil tried opening the driver’s side door. It opened a little bit, enough to let the rain in, but not enough to get out. There was some rock or something on the outside that was blocking it.

“I suppose we’ll be climbing out the back, then,” Logan said from somewhere behind Virgil.

“Yup,” Virgil sighed, clambering over the space between the front two seats that was filled with suspicious trash. “You really need to clean this car, Thomas.”

“I know,” Thomas sighed. “Not exactly my finest moment, I haven’t had a lot of time to myself lately.”

Virgil snorted. “Time to yourself? You are joking. You share a head with four other people.”

“Time alone at front, then,” Thomas said as he opened the back door to the car.

Virgil climbed out and inspected the car. “Dude, that is completely totaled. Glad we somehow didn’t die, though.”

Thomas made a dry laugh. “Yeah, I guess not dying is pretty good.”

Virgil checked the cell phone. Still no cell signal. “Thomas? Do you know the way home?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, hang on…” Thomas said. “I can’t give you exact directions, but I can tell you where to go if we follow the road back the way we came.”

“Joy,” Virgil said. He took a step forward and felt a sharp pain from his ankle. “Ow!”

“Ooh, that’s sprained,” Thomas said. “I’m pretty sure that’s sprained.”

Virgil shifted his weight to his other foot, which was thankfully fine. “So we have to hop our way home? Because last I checked we don’t drag around medical boots everywhere we go.”

“Just try not to focus on the pain, for now,” Logan said. Virgil could see in his mind’s eye Logan adjusting his glasses, even though he was fairly certain he wasn’t  _actually_  seeing Logan. “We can get treatment for the ankle later. I’m surprised that’s the only problem that’s shown itself so far.”

Virgil took another step, wincing at the pain. The rain was still coming down, which wasn’t helping his mood much, and even Thomas felt to be in low spirits. “We can’t walk very far like this,” he said. “Let’s hope we get somewhere with a cell signal soon.”

“Oh!” Roman exclaimed, causing Virgil to nearly make the body jump. “How far away is the nearest fast-food place?! They almost always have free Wi-Fi!”

“I think it was at the last corner, but that was all the way up the hill and maybe another quarter-mile from there,” Thomas said.

Virgil grit his teeth. “Better start moving then,” he mumbled.

Every step with his bad ankle caused him to wince but he forced down the pain as much as he could. He was a protector at his core, this is what he was made for, he could do this.

The rain was beating down harder if that was possible and the wind was picking up but Virgil just kept walking. He didn’t know where Thomas’ friends wanted to go that involved taking this back road, but he didn’t want to make plans to go there ever again.

Step left, step right, breathe through the pain, you’ve got this Virgil, you can do this. A mantra going through his head the whole time, Virgil dragged himself up the hill, walking for as long as he could before the pain became to much and he started limping, tears forming in his eyes from the pain, but he could do this, he was the original protector, he was strong, he could fight…

Thomas was by his side the whole time, helping them walk, looking up the road for any cars, practicing what he’d say if someone stopped to ask if he was okay.

Virgil tripped and stumbled into the mud, but got up and kept walking. He could do this. His single-handed stubborn determination and his fear of dying out here alone were enough to get him up the hill, where his legs almost gave out.

“Hey, Virge, you did great, why don’t you let me do most of the walking now?” Thomas offered.

“Because you’ll feel the pain,” Virgil said.

“I feel it already, Virge, we’re cofronting. But you’re pushing yourself almost over the edge and I don’t want you getting hurt,” Thomas said. “Let me do the worrying for a little while.”

“Can’t,” Virgil said. “This is what I resort to in emergencies, and if I calm down during this then something’s more wrong with me than the situation.”

Thomas sighed. “Well, I suppose I can see where you’re coming from. Still, if you let me focus on the walking I think you’d feel a little better.”

Virgil, feeling too tired to even argue at this point, nodded and let Thomas take control of the legs. He used the extra focus that had been going into that to now examine his head.

He felt along his hair line and winced as he went a little lower. Hitting the airbags hard was bound to leave a bruise; he just hoped they didn’t have a concussion.

The fast-food place came into view, and Virgil helped Thomas move faster until they were in the doorway and there were people coming over to check on them. “Sir, are you all right?” one woman asked.

Thomas took over the mouth, an action for which Virgil would be eternally grateful. “I got into a car accident down the road, I had no cell service. Is there Wi-Fi here? I need to call Triple-A for a tow-truck, at least.”

People were fussing over him but he was told that yes, there was Wi-Fi. Someone asked if they should call an ambulance, which freaked Virgil and Patton out more than a bit, but Logan said might not be a bad idea. At the very least,  _someone_  needed to check them over, and it wasn’t like they could simply drive to the ER.

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur, if Virgil was being honest. Thomas called a tow-truck, and an ambulance came to the fast-food place and the paramedics checked them over, concluding they had a mild concussion and a sprained ankle, as well as some cuts no one had noticed.

Thomas also called Joan and explained the long and short of what had happened, asking them for a ride home and a chance to reschedule once the ankle boot they needed was gone and the concussion had cleared up.

Obviously they got home somehow, Thomas took off the clothes they had been wearing and quickly showered to get most of the mud and grime off the body. But then it was a quick change into sweatpants before Thomas collapsed on the bed, and Virgil was drifting in and out of front when he felt Thomas hug him in the Inner World, help him to his room, and Virgil was out like a light, content in knowing that they were (relatively speaking) safe.


	15. Chapter 15

Thomas took a breath of fresh air from the Courtyard in front of the Mind Palace and grinned. “Wow,” was all he managed to say.

“Hey, Thomas! You gonna come see my rose bush that I’ve labored for ages on or what?” Virgil called from further into the space.

“Coming, coming!” Thomas laughed. “Sometimes you can be so impatient. It’s like we’re kids all over again.”

“Laugh all you want, Thomas, this is important!” Virgil retaliated. “There’s no time for waiting!”

Thomas shook his head and walked further into the courtyard to where Virgil was standing. "It’s about time!“ Virgil said, though there was nothing but the barest hints of excitement in his voice. "Look at my prized plant!”

Thomas did, and his eyes lit up when he saw all of Virgil’s hard work. The bush couldn’t be more than three feet tall, but it was already very full and looked like it could grow to be over their heads if Virgil kept tending to it. There were five different kinds of roses on it, which made Thomas take a closer look. “That’s impressive, Virge,” he said, hand barely ghosting over the roses.

“Thank you,” Virgil said, obviously quite pleased with himself. “Logan studied grafting plants at one point, around high school, just to learn how it worked, and I decided to do that with this bush. There’s a color for each of us.”

“Which one’s which?” Thomas asked.

“The really bright red one is Roman’s. It’s lively and bright and sometimes a little over the top, but overall dependable and a classic. Patton’s is the pure white, because there’s barely a dark spot in his day that he can’t fix. My rose is the dark red that looks almost black. Sure, it’s dark and can sometimes be seen as morbid, but it’s just as good as the others. Different doesn’t mean bad.” Thomas could hear the smile in Virgil’s voice. “Logan’s is deep pink, if for no other reason than I had to work on several generations of roses to get that color, through trial-and-error and I think he would appreciate the experiments. Which leaves you with pastel pink.”

“Yeah? Why is pastel pink me?” Thomas asked, trying to contain himself while he waited with baited breath for the answer.

“You’re a little bit like all of us, but you’re still your own person. You’re bright and happy like Patton, but you’re also a little more subdued about it. You don’t have the overtly bright tones everyone else here has, which isn’t a bad thing, and in fact it means you’re better with most other people in the world. Your color isn’t harsh on the eyes, and it took some working to get just right, but once it’s there, it’s there for good. There’s nothing you can do to hold that positivity of yours back. It’s…I feel like I’m not explaining this right, but I hope you get what I mean,” Virgil said.

“No, no, you’re explaining really well. There’s probably deeper reasons that you can’t pin down, but I agree with every one of your choices. And…this is really amazing, Virgil. I had no idea you had such a green thumb! You’re going to have to help me if I ever decide to bring home succulents like I’ve always wanted to,” Thomas laughed.

Virgil beamed.

The front door to the Mind Palace opened and Patton brought out the card table from before, setting it up by the benches in near the sundial. "I’m getting the food!“ he exclaimed, running back inside.

Thomas laughed and stood up, looking around. "This whole place is amazing,” he said, looking around. “And you guys made it?”

“You helped some way back when,” Virgil pointed out. “But Roman certainly took the idea and ran wild with it. I did help with the hedge maze out back, Logan thought it would be fun to test his wits with a constantly changing maze, so we both worked on it, and Patton hid a bunch of stuff in it when we were done. Logan focused more on the maze design rather than growing the hedges, though.”

“I can see that happening,” Thomas said, amused. “We should explore it sometime, though.”

“We should,” Virgil agreed.

Patton came back out, arms full with a bag of chips and two big bottles of soda, as well as plastic cups. “Roman’s bringing the last thing, he just needed one more minute,” Patton said as he got everything settled on the card table.

“What thing?” Thomas asked. “We already had pizza for lunch, what’s the big surprise?”

Patton glanced at Virgil and Thomas turned around to find Virgil subtly shaking his head. “What are you guys keeping from me?” Thomas asked.

“Well, now, that would ruin the surprise!” Virgil said with false innocence. “You don’t want to ruin the surprise, do you, Thomas?”

Thomas gave Virgil a half-hearted glare. It didn’t last long, though, as Roman and Logan walked out, each holding the side of a very impressive sheet cake. “We would sing Happy Birthday but that seems a little inappropriate,” Roman said.

Logan nodded. “We made the occasion clear on the icing, however.”

They put the cake down on the table and Thomas walked over, reading the top of the cake. It said, “Happy Un-Frontstuck Day, Thomas!” in loopy blue icing, with blue trim on the edges of the cake and red icing flowers, not unlike the roses. Thomas grinned. “You guys!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t have to!”

“No, but we wanted to!” Roman exclaimed. “You’re important to us! So we’re celebrating your being back. I invited at least two villages over, they should be here any time now!”

Thomas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His best friends from when he was younger, his  _family_  was celebrating him walking around the Inner World after twenty long years of being holed up in his room. What he did to ever deserve these guys, he didn’t know.

There were people walking into view from the distance and Roman ran over to greet them, letting them into the courtyard. “These guys aren’t really part of us, just part of Roman’s overactive imagination,” Virgil explained. “But they do know how to throw a good party when they need to.”

Thomas just shook his head fondly as people started filing in. Logan cleared his throat. “Now, then. Shall we cut the cake before everyone in the Inner World tries to get their hands on a piece?”

Patton jumped up and down eagerly. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I want to try the cake!”

Thomas laughed and Logan cracked a smile. Virgil walked up to the cake, pulling a knife out of thin air as well as a stack of paper plates, and dished a piece of cake for Patton, handing it over. Patton eagerly took it and grabbed a fork from the tower of cups (why he hid them in there, Thomas couldn’t begin to guess), running up to the villagers and starting to excitedly chatter at them. This was a strange feeling, but overall not an unwelcome one at all. It felt…normal, more normal that most things had felt in years. In a strange way, it finally felt like…he was home.

“Don’t get too used to this,” Virgil warned, “We need you to front sometimes still, especially with that boot! We don’t want Roman running around and making it worse.”

“I know, I know,” Thomas laughed. “But something just feels right, and it’s not a feeling that’s going away any time soon.”

Virgil shook his head and cut Thomas a piece of cake. “Eat up, I’m sure Roman’s going to corral a DJ out of this group of villagers and he’ll insist on everyone dancing sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

Thomas laughed. “That sounds like it would be funny. Can Roman dance at all? Or no?”

“He can do musical numbers, let’s put it that way,” Virgil said. “Freestyle? None of us are that great at it.”

“The rhythms in certain songs can be quite illogical,” Logan stated. “It’s hard to follow an abruptly changing pattern.”

“I take it you don’t like dubstep then,” Thomas deadpanned.

“Dubstep? No. I do, however, have an appreciation for all sorts of poetry,” Logan said.

“He likes rap,” Virgil translated.

“Oh, I was not…was not expecting that,” Thomas said.

Logan took a piece of cam for himself and shrugged. “There are a lot of things you do not know about me. Perhaps one day you can learn most of them.”

He walked of and Thomas shook his head. “That sounds good to me!” he called.

Virgil took one last slice of cake for himself and sat down on one of the stone benches surrounding the sundial. Thomas sat next to him. “You know, I don’t understand why we even bother with a sundial when it’s perpetually daylight out here,” Virgil said.

Thomas just cracked up. Virgil looked slightly miffed, so Thomas hurried to explain. “It’s just…it’s just all of this is so much to take in. I barely even got used to the concepts of this world yet and the fact that we have something that’s essentially useless just sitting around as a centerpiece of useful things…I dunno, it just struck me as funny.”

“I’ll allow it,” Virgil said, taking a bite of his cake.

Thomas grinned and nudged Virgil with his shoulder. “Hey. Hey Virgil. Hey. Hey. Hey Virge.”

Virgil sighed and looked over. “What?”

“You’re my best friend,” Thomas whispered. “Don’t tell the others. I want to get to know them better so hopefully we all can be best friends, but you’re my first best friend ever, meaning you’re super important to me.”

Virgil turned beet red and Thomas grinned, thinking his work for the day over with that statement. “I’m so forcing you to do the Macarena when Roman plays it later.”

Thomas just grinned wider in response. “Don’t hate, Virge, or I’ll just force you to do it too.”

Virgil’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Watch me,” Thomas challenged.

“You’re on,” Virgil said. “You’re on.”

* * *

Thomas sighed as he walked back into the Mind Palace from the party which was wrapping up. It felt like there were a lot of people there, even if he knew it was just Roman’s imagination. He was ready to collapse and sleep for a long while.

But when he looked up the stairs at his room he felt more than a bit of trepidation. He didn’t want to go up there only to wake up the next morning and be stuck. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to take that, not after seeing everyone again.

Virgil walked in from outside around the same time Thomas did, stretching. “Roman’s organizing clean-up, which basically means waving a hand over everything and causing it to dematerialize,” he said. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Just tired.”

“I think it’s a little more than being just tired,” Virgil said knowingly. “I don’t blame you for being worried about going into your room, though. The first time one of the others had a panic attack from coming into my room, I slept on the couch for a week. It’s chill, we can hang out here.”

Thomas frowned. “We?”

“Well, yeah, we, I’m not going to let you camp out on the couch all by yourself,” Virgil said. “We can put on a movie or something if you want, get blankets, build a fort, whatever you want to do in here can be done.”

Thomas was a little thrown by the offer, but that didn’t mean he was going to turn it down. “That sounds great. I think it would be a good chance for everyone to hang out, too, don’t you agree?”

Virgil shrugged. “If you want everyone here I won’t object…this time. Just don’t be surprised if I leave sometimes to recharge. I can only take so many people at once.”

Thomas nodded. Patton and Logan walked into the room, and Virgil said, “You guys up for a blanket fort in the common room tonight?”

“Am I ever!” Patton exclaimed. “I have the perfect blankets for this! Let me go get them!”

As he ran off, Logan rolled his eyes. “That one is going to get us into trouble yet,” he said. “I can grab some pillows, we’re sure to have some of them laying around somewhere. Maybe a mattress or two as well, and some sleeping bags.”

Roman entered the Mind Palace with a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “That was fun. What’s going on in here?”

“We’re thinking of having a movie marathon out here tonight,” Virgil said. “If you want, you and Thomas can queue the movies together.”

Thomas smiled at the thought. Roman eagerly pulled Thomas over to their DVD collection and started picking out some of his favorites. Thomas was just overwhelmed at the thought that these wonderful people actually cared enough about him to take the time away from their own projects and ideas to keep him company. “Thanks for this, guys,” he said.

“Of course!” Roman said. “There is nothing I would rather do than binge-watch movies with you, Thomas!”

“I understand being anxious, I don’t want you to feel that way if I can help it,” Virgil brushed off.

Patton ran into the room with blankets and said, “This is something I’ve always dreamed of doing!”

Logan appeared as well armed with pillows and sleeping bags. “Anything I can do to help I am more than happy to achieve.”

Thomas recognized all those responses as the subtle little “I love you"s they were, and he took them with great joy. "This is going to be fun!” he exclaimed, looking through the movies himself. “There’s a lot of Disney in here, too, which is always a good start to a movie marathon. Does anyone have room for popcorn?”

Virgil laughed. “I’ll go make it. Don’t you go anywhere, nerds.”

Thomas pulled out a few movies of his own and offered his choices up to Logan and Patton’s approval. When he got the green light on them, and Roman got approved for (most of) his choices, everyone started building a fort from blankets and pillows. There wasn’t much to hold it up, though, so they wound up making mounds of blankets and throwing pillows on top of them, adjusting everything to their liking until they called it a day.

Virgil came back to the common room with popcorn and looked over the movies. “ _Some_  Harry Potter? Really?” he asked, amused. “Why not  _all_ of it?”

“Because then we couldn’t watch any other movies, obviously! It would be morning by the time we were done!” Roman exclaimed.

“Fair enough,” Virgil muttered. “Which movie are we watching first?”

“I vote for the first Harry Potter!” Patton exclaimed.

“I would like to see something resembling historical fiction, or, short that, something that at least doesn’t lean so heavily on the suspension of disbelief,” Logan said.

“Disney,” Roman stated.

“I think we should just watch everything so we don’t have to worry about order,” Thomas volunteered.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Of course you do.” Humming over the DVDs, he snatched  _The Avengers_  and walked over to the TV, putting it in himself.

“You can’t do that!” Roman exclaimed in surprised anger.

“First person to put the DVD in gets to choose which movie everyone watches, you know this!” Virgil exclaimed. “Besides,  _The Avengers_  is an amazing cinematic masterpiece.”

“Hard to argue with that logic, Roman,” Thomas teased.

“That is neither true nor logical,” Logan interjected. “Thomas, don’t spread lies, especially to Roman.”

“Hey!” Roman objected. “That’s rude!”

Logan tilted his head downward. “Apologies. But the point stands. Don’t spread misinformation.”

“It was an attempt at a joke, which apparently fell flat,” Thomas said.

“No, it was fine, you just happened to be nearby the one person who takes almost everything we say literally,” Virgil said, getting situated on the blankets and passing around the popcorn. “Now hush, I want to watch the movie.”

Thomas inwardly smiled as the movie started up. Was this what everything felt like when he was younger? Surrounded by people who would never want each other to hurt, working together to get where they needed to go? If it was, he was glad to have found it again.

He wouldn’t trade this for the world.

**Author's Note:**

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